


Long Arm of the Law

by Royswordsman (RoySwordsman)



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Romantic Comedy, cyborg AU, inspector gadget au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 04:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5361836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoySwordsman/pseuds/Royswordsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Gadget AU – Steve’s a new policeman on the force and is partnered up with a goofy detective that no one in the force wants to be partnered up with. Steve finds out that Tony isn’t like the other detectives and is part of a special project and is part robot with gadgets to suit every need and is more than curious, but Tony soon wins him over. They learn to trust and love one another, until one day Reed Richards is kidnapped by Doctor Doom who has also stolen the original schematics that he and Tony worked on to make Tony the incredible robot detective he is today. Doom has other tricks up his sleeve; he builds a robot to destroy the city and people think that the robot is Tony’s doing. It’s up to Steve and Tony to prove Tony’s innocence as well as rescue Reed and save the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [theliterator](http://www.theliterator.tumblr.com) for being a wonderfully fast beta and giving me some wonderful feedback, and of course check out the wonderful peices to go with it;  
> I was very fortunate to be paired up with RiceDrink: [The first beautiful peice here by ricedrink](http://orig05.deviantart.net/e291/f/2015/339/c/5/bigbang_2015_by_ricedrink-d9j30mi.jpg)  
> [And many other incredible drawings by the wonderful kakushimiko](http://kakushimiko.tumblr.com/post/134860152962/long-arm-of-the-law-by-royswordsman)

The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the busy streets were lined with civilians heading to their workplaces on that Monday morning.  The fragrant aromas of caffeine and gasoline wafted through the air while everyone went about their daily commute like clockwork. Despite the constant honking of the horns that signified the regular heartbeat of New York City, it was the perfect day; policeman Steve Rogers couldn’t have possibly asked for a better start to his first morning working in the NYPD.

“Geez, sure is different…” Steve said as he lowered the visor of his navy blue police cap to protect his eyes from the rays that beamed down from the cheerful sun above, barely breaking through the canopy of skyscrapers yet still managing to shine ever so brightly. Brooklyn wasn’t that far away from NYC; actually Steve’s journey was around 45 minutes to get to the other side of the East River via subway. It was a small journey but Manhattan seemed like a different country entirely, which was surreal to say the least; everyone had different accents, they were so preoccupied with themselves, and it just seemed so busy.

“O-oh sorry!” Steve held up both of his hands as a commuter brushed by his large shoulders. That was the problem with being so big, especially in a city that was mostly crowded; it wasn’t particularly easy to maneuver around without smacking someone in the face.

“Watch where yer goin’! Tourist…” they hissed back.

He would have assumed since they spotted him in a police uniform that he wouldn’t be called a tourist, but apparently the locals had a way of just _knowing_ , like a sixth sense.

He couldn’t let that dampen his spirits, not when he was sure that he was going to have a great day. Optimism fuelled each step in his polished black shoes.  New York was seen as the Land of Opportunity and it definitely offered just that to the cop.

It wasn’t too long until he finally approached the tall building that he had been searching for; the NYPD headquarters. It was as majestic as he had dreamed it would be. Huge steps lay before him up toward the massive mahogany doors that were clearly years old, two huge round lamps either side of the entrance with concrete sculptures holding them up. He had to stop for a moment just to stare and take it all in, his smile widening from ear to ear as he watched his new co-workers walk in and out through the doors that hardly had a chance to close properly before someone moved between them.

He couldn’t quite believe he was working here. This was every cop’s dream; to be stationed in one of the world’s most renowned departments, right in the centre of the city. “Wow…”  Steve was completely Mesmerized, lost in his thoughts and dreams until a firm hand tapped his shoulder.

“You okay there?” she asked, her blond hair tucked under her cap with peeks of golden curls managing to escape how neatly tied up the rest of her hair was.

“Y-yeah!” Steve snapped out of his daydream and smiled right back at her.  His azures went straight for her name badge, golden and slick, pinned and polished to perfection on the front of her uniform. “Ms. Danvers.”

She let out a smooth chuckle and replied with a rather surprisingly hard smack on the back. “Just call me Carol. You’re a newbie here, aren’t you?”

He managed to talk after he’d recovered from the hard pat and caught the breath back that was knocked out of him. “Transferred from Brooklyn ma’am. But this feels like I’m straight out of the academy, if I’m honest.”  Steve had worked in the NYPD back in Brooklyn but that was nothing compared to working in the main city, in the heart of the USA.  There was far more pressure, which he was ready to carry on his shoulders.  

“Should’ve recognised that accent.” She winked at him, a sideward smirk cast over her cherry red lips as she began to lead him inside, giving him a small push of encouragement as her palm rested comfortably on his back. It seemed as though she wasn’t scared of him at all, which was always a plus. Back in his old place others used to be far more intimidated by him purely because of his stature and previous military background; still, he appreciated someone immediately being on his level. “Let me guess too, ex-military?”

“Served my tour, this is a little break for me. Working alongside the police is a dream .”

“Ah, military boy. I was right. Air Force myself, like you I’m taking a small detour before I get back into the game. But I’m restless at home, even though my cat enjoys keeping me preoccupied I just couldn’t sit around and do nothing.”

“I know the feeling.” Steve nodded sagely. “My ma always wanted me to join the force so here I am, don’t regret it for a second. Though what gave it away?”

She tapped the side of her nose with another all-knowing glance “Your posture gives away more than you think, boyscout.”

There was a flash of embarrassment as he attempted to slope his shoulders a little, give himself a little slump in pose, but it didn’t work. The second he tried to lower himself by instinct his shoulders raised again and chest out to show off his broad frame. Anything else just felt uncomfortable.

She removed her cap once she was indoors and kept it under her arm, waving to a couple of the other cops and leading Steve throughout the maze of their precinct until they reached the main staff lounge and gestured for Steve to take a seat while one of the other men handed her a cup of coffee straight from the pot. It was then that Steve realised that she was clearly someone important, and respected, which only made him sit up straighter, his back not touching the back of the dark grey stained seat. By the looks of it someone had spilled their coffee on the chair he was sat on in the past, numerous times.  Not that there was anything wrong with stains; at least it was a little more homely, to a degree. 

She sipped her coffee, leaving a bright red lipstick mark on the porcelain white mug and smiled reassuringly at him. “You don’t have to be so tense, you know.”

“It’s a little nerve wracking, I mean this whole joint runs differently from Brooklyn…”

“Rogers, you’ve served in the army, there’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

“I know, I know…” His eyes fell to his hands fiddling nervously in his lap. “I just want to do a good job.”

“You will, I’m sure, boyscout. There’s no reason to look like you’re next in line for the electric chair.”

“I appreciate your confidence in me, Carol.”

“Don’t mention it; now don’t prove me wrong okay? There’s probably a pot going around somewhere in the building for how long you’ll last. I’ll be sure to put myself in for the last slot, don’t let me down.” She held up her mug to him.

He nodded and began to look around to soak in his surroundings. This was the place he would now practically be living in. He’d be surrounded by these people every day so he had better learn to get along.

Two minutes later his attention was caught by a criminal being hauled in, only he was singed from head to toe – completely burned. The tips of his hair still had embers sizzling bright, even the ends of his moustache were smoking.

The other cops stood by the door and watched as the guy was slowly placed into a cell; looking extremely grateful for being in that cell, actually. He dropped down and curled up in the corner of it. Steve couldn’t help but stop and stare, wondering how on earth someone had ended up like that.

“Guy looks like he’s been roughed up real bad…”

Carol’s hand brushed over her forehead. “Must be **the detective** …”

“The detective? What do you mean?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

 ** _That_** _sounded ominous_.

Shortly after the man was taken in and everyone’s eyes remained glued on the cowering criminal a man with short messy blond hair with a band aid on his nose dragged his feet into the staff room, reaching immediately for the pot of coffee. Rather than pouring a mug he just took the entire thing and began to drink from it.

“Barton, how many times have I told you **not** to do that?” Carol scorned.

He waved his hand, his mouth preoccupied by guzzling down the black liquid. Steve could do nothing at that point but raise his eyebrow questioningly.

Once his lips were free he began to speak. “Oh, look, newbie.” He pointed to Steve. “I’m Clint, Clint Barton.”

“What he means to say is that he’s the laziest guy here.”

“Excuse you? I’ve got the best record in the shooting range.”

“He’s our best sniper. Self-trained. SWAT like to borrow him from time to time but he’s the best gunman we have on the team.”

“I hate goin’ with SWAT…” Clint droned. “Guys are so uptight…” He took another long sip from the pot.

“Clint used to be in the circus too, that’s when the guys picked him up as a youth offender and turned him into the fine strapping policeman you see before you.”

Steve couldn’t hold back a snort.

Clint definitely heard that and directed his full attention toward Steve. “Hey, newbie, I wouldn’t be getting cocky. Even though Carol’s gone ahead and told you my entire life story. But yeah, new guy… Wait, wait, you’re THE new guy, aren’t you? The one that’s gonna be the detective’s new partner?”

To be quite honest, Steve didn’t know what he was in for. He knew he’d be partnered up with a detective but he had just assumed it was one of the regulars for a case. Detective-cop partnerships were often short term anyway, just for a single case and once that was over that was the end of it.

“Hey, Jess! This guy’s going to be paired up with the detective!” Clint hollered.

Jessica, a black haired policewoman with her hair tied up in a ponytail, peeked through the door. “This guy?” She looked Steve up and down and pursed her lips together. “You’ll be out in a week.”

“Jessica!” Carol sounded very offended, getting up and striding up to her.

“What? It’s true…” She pouted back at Carol, meeting her eyes with an intense stare. “No one ever lasts more than a week with that guy.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but the look Carol was giving her seemed to deter her, “Don’t scare him.” Carol simply put, her hand resting on her hip to give her that pose typical of those with power.

“I’m not sugar coating anything, but good luck. You’ll need it.” She saluted at him before heading out, Carol following her, clearly not finished with her lecture.

Clint continued to laugh, telling the others that walked in who joined him in a chorus of giggles, each patting Steve on the shoulder sympathetically. Steve didn’t understand. There were a number of questions popping into his head at that moment; who was ‘the detective’ and what was so terrible about him? Every time he received a pat or a squeeze on the shoulder he could feel another butterfly appear in his stomach. His lips lined strictly together and he gulped nervously, his eyes going back to the guy locked up behind those heavy silver iron bars.

_Am I going to end up like that?_


	2. Chapter 2

Steve stood by the water dispenser, taking a sip from a Styrofoam cup. Being told to wait in the staff room while everyone went about their day wasn’t exactly how he thought he’d spend his first morning; he’d been thinking of being out in a car in a high speed chase or wrangling up some robbers from a local bank. New York was full of crime that needed to be stopped and in his mind every second that he was spending idly sipping water next to a cooler was a second wasted.  It was hard to stay peppy while his thoughts went to what he could potentially be doing. He drifted further and further into his thoughts before Jessica poked her head into the room again, just in the way she’d done before.

“Chief wants to see you.” She pointed to the office that overlooked the entire room, a large painted window with ‘Chief Fury’ written in bold, gold writing stood before them.

Steve adjusted his posture, gulping down the remaining water before tossing the cup into the nearby trashcan and straightening out his uniform.

Jessica stared at him, deadpan.  “Looks like you’re prepping for a date. Hurry up, will ya? The longer he’s kept waiting the more he rages, and trust me, no one wants to deal with Chief yelling at us all day… Gives me a headache.”

He just fixed his collar and made haste, weaving through small gaps between desks and trying to dance between the other officers walking around with coffee in their hands or stacks of papers and bags of evidence. The place was filled with life, just as he had expected and dreamed of and he was seconds away from becoming one of the cogs in this well-oiled machine.

When he finally reached the door, he knocked hard on the thick wood and cleared his throat for good measure, keeping his cap tucked neatly under his arm.

“Come in,” he heard from the other side.

Steve carefully opened the door using the silver doorknob and stepped inside, closing the door behind him and standing strict and straight, just like he had done in the academy, holding his hand up to his brow to salute his new chief.

“Sir!”

“At ease…” The man muttered whilst he sat in a huge dark leather chair, arms resting either side, face on to the door with the light shining through the pane from behind him. He had a huge cigar resting between his teeth, making everything he said sound like it was coming out of the side of his mouth that wasn’t chewing on the huge cigar. “Take a seat, Rogers.”

A thick mist of cigar smoke flooded the room and obstructed the bright light, but Steve just nodded gratefully and sat down, though again truth be told he felt like he was wasting time here; at least he could get to work once he was fully briefed.

Chief Fury was in full uniform, with badges and ribbons decorating his lapel, with further decoration on his shoulders to signify his higher rank. Steve was certainly no stranger to authority like that, and tried not to stare at the eyepatch the man had either covering his left eye with the string tucked neatly behind his grey sideburns. He was quite the sight, clearly a war veteran that had turned to helping out the police.

With his hat placed in his lap he awaited his orders.

“So, you’re the new one from Brooklyn?” The gritty voice asked.

“Yes sir, I am. Brooklyn through and through.”

“Mhm…” That grunt didn’t give much away, Fury didn’t seem impressed in the slightest at Steve’s display of loyalty, his face seemed to be stuck in a permanent frown with huge bags outlining his tired eye. That hard edged scruff didn’t help either as the Chief ran his fingers across it. “We have a special assignment for you.”

“You do? Chief, whatever it is I’ll do my best!”

“I’m sure you will, Rogers… Anyway, this is something we need you to take care in how you handle.”

There was a sudden loud THUD from outside and both Fury and Steve turned simultaneously to stare at the back of what looked to be a man in a trench coat smacking against the window, turning and waving with an embarrassed grin across his features before tapping at the window with his red gauntlet covered hand – come to think of it, at first glance Steve could have easily mistaken those gauntlets for red and gold gloves if he hadn’t noticed the light in the centre of them and the loud tap that they’d made when he touched the glass.

Fury rolled his eye and pushed himself up from his seat, opening the window for the man to fly through – there were jets coming from the soles of his boots, leaving cyan streaks in the air before he settled on the ground, his palms held to either side of him, downward-facing, to help him balance. But just as he did a gust of wind flew in with him and all the papers that Fury had neatly placed in front of him flew everywhere, including in Steve’s face.

He tugged down the report that had managed to get itself stuck on his face and instantly his eyes darted to the man that had _flown_ into the office. Wide eyed, he took in the sight of what would usually be considered a rather dapper looking man in a designer black suit, if not for his oversized charcoal grey trench-coat and fedora that looked as though it’d come straight out a gangster movie, with mismatched red gloves and red boots that seemed to fold away and turn into a pair of normal shoes and normal hands, right in front of Steve’s eyes. Quite frankly he couldn’t believe what he was seeing; this guy had just flown in and transformed his feet and hands.

“Sorry Chief, guess this is why you should digitize files huh? I should help you with that sometime.” The man said in a cocky, confident voice as he removed that fedora that Steve had spotted and pushed his hand through his short, neatly trimmed black hair with stunning blue eyes that were earlier hidden by the shade casted by the hat.

Fury looked just about ready to smack the man in the face. “You’re lucky Stark, you say anythin’ else funny and I’ll smack that goatee right off your face. Capiche?”

“Got it, one-eyed-bandit, sir!” He saluted.

Steve was just gawking at the man, trying to figure out what on earth he’d just witnessed.

Once Fury had composed himself, not even bothering to pick up the papers for now, he glanced back to the distracted cop who had his mouth wide open to match his look of pure bewilderment. He snapped his fingers and Steve jumped, instantly staring back at the Chief with an apologetic look, but he kept glancing back to the suited man in the oversized trench coat, uncontrollably.

“Rogers, meet Detective- self-proclaimed ‘inspector’- Stark. Your new partner.”

_Could this have been the ‘detective’ that everyone was so ominously talking about earlier?_

“Pleasure to meet you—wait.”   Steve took a double take. “Partner? He’s… My partner?”

“He’s new to the force actually. He became the pet project for the police after ‘ _the accident’_  and now he’s part of our team.” There was resentment hiding behind his words, Steve could definitely pick up on that, especially since there was an annoyed huff that followed once Fury had explained, taking a long puff from the cigar and exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose.  “He needs a new partner.”

“ _New_ partner?” The word caught Steve’s attention.

“Well we’ve assigned some in the past, just a few, he’s not been here for long and we’ve gone through about six guys, you’re lucky number seven.”

“Seven!?”

“In my defence-“ Detective Stark chimed in “-The first guy I didn’t know was afraid of heights, the second… He shouldn’t have used so much product in his hair, I didn’t know he’d be a walking fire hazard, the third guy – now _that_ was an accident, I didn’t mean to drop him he just, well, he didn’t **die** he just had a few broken bones is all…”

“By a few you mean almost every bone in his body?”

“Yeah, just a _couple_ …”  He smirked as though his smile was trying to cover up how much damage he’d really done. Regardless, Steve gulped audibly, staring at the man like a deer caught in the headlights, he just received a calm smile back and a shrug of the shoulders. “But it was an accident, plus this guy sure looks like he drinks his milk.”

All eyes were back on Steve and he loosened his collar a little, choking out a nervous laugh. He was prepared to face any challenge, but working with someone that had been through a string of partners was extremely daunting. Internally he scolded himself and stood up, taking a deep breath. “I’ll last, I promise. I’ll be the best partner you’ve had, pal.”  

“If you last…” Fury muttered under his breath inaudibly. He had little faith in anyone lasting and was already prepared to just pluck out the paperwork for a new partner assignment.

Steve extended his hand to the man. “Steve Rogers, pleasure!”

“Tony Stark, detective extraordinaire, master of technology. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.” Tony shook Steve’s hand too. The first thing that Steve noticed, however, was how cold Tony’s touch was. It sent a shiver running through his spine, and just as he pulled back the tips of their fingers met and there was a small spark, causing Steve to sharply withdraw his hand and shake it in the air a few times.

“Yeouch!” Steve rubbed his hand. “Static huh… Geez, I hate that.”

“Get used to it.” Fury said sternly, again earning a curious lift of the eyebrow from Steve. He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant but something told me he’d find out sooner or later, especially with the air of mystery surrounding his new partner – ‘the detective’, ‘the accident’, ‘pet project’ and all that.

“Your assignment’s here.” Fury sorted through the few papers that were left on the desk and slid it across the large desk toward Steve dismissively. “Now get on it.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Stepping out of the Chief’s office with the paper in his hand, Steve walked down the stairs, frowning even more than before at the white sheet. Though it was a relief to be out of that room, at least he could breathe in fresh clean air; well, air tainted with the smell of freshly ground coffee in this case.

“Kitten duty…” Everyone knew what that meant, Steve especially. Back in Brooklyn they’d assign kitten duty to newbies or cops that they thought weren’t fit enough to do the job to find lost cats or go to owners who reported their cats missing, sometimes even rescue them from trees if the firemen were too busy. It was a simple job that no cop wanted, but had to be done.

Tony followed behind Steve, slipping his hat on and dusting off his jacket.  “Well it seems we’re going to save some kittens today, I’ve got no problem with that.”

“Really?” Steve asked. “It’s… Probably the most boring thing to do.” He shrugged.

“Just think about the owners’ faces, now that’s really something.”

Steve looked back at him, a little surprised to be hearing such a positive attitude, but it was taken on board and appreciated too. Perhaps Steve was a little too caught up in playing cops and robbers that maybe he’d lost sight of what mattered, and was happy to be reminded.

“That’s true too.”

“Newbie!” A voice called from across the room – it was the man who had been drinking out of the coffee pot earlier holding a bunch of keys in his hand. “This’s yours!” He threw them over the few desks that were in the way, Steve caught them easily.

“Good throw! Thanks!”

“My throws are always perfect,” he replied with an air that resembled cockiness.

Steve took a closer look at the keys so he could see what number his car would be, each police car had a 3 digit number that was usually on the top of it, the one assigned to him was car ‘616’. He made a mental note and headed out with Tony, catching the others glancing at them from afar, making their comments about ‘the detective’ and a few whispering good luck to Steve along the way. Truth be told, he was still trying to figure out what exactly had happened in the office and wondered if he’d had one too many cups of coffee; maybe the excitement was making him delusional.

He made his way out, with Tony waving at some of the other cops on the way, only to get either half waves or no response at all. It was sad, to be honest, especially from Steve’s perspective. Whoever this detective was, he had a heck of a reputation. Only Carol, Jessica, and the guy who’d chucked them the keys actually made an effort to acknowledge him.

Steve was excited to be working with a new partner, especially one that seemed eager to do some good. The first time he’d caught a glance of his new partner it was from outside, just as he was flying in he caught a glimpse of those pearly whites and perfectly ironed shirt and bright azures that may or may not have distracted him. It looked as though he were working with a human ‘Ken’ doll. Nonetheless, Tony just followed Steve’s instructions for the time being, observing, eager to correct the newbie when he spotted a hiccup, after all that would _really_ show them that Tony deserved to be there.

Tony stopped in his tracks, just in front of the car. “Wait, wait, just a second there, blondie!”

Steve who was already sat in the new car, adjusting his rear in to fit into the already formed groove of the black leather seats peered up. “What’s wrong, partner?”

“I’m getting something…” His brow furrowed, lips downturned, tapping his goatee just before he reached to the top of his hat and tapped the centre of it, before tugging out a long silver antenna, grimacing a little whilst he did. Steve stared, absolutely gobsmacked. “Go go Stark communicator…” He whispered so Steve couldn’t hear.

“Beep- beep- We’ve got a call for help! Not too far from here—a damsel in distress! Down by the park..!” he replied. “Beep beep- send help--!”

Tony jumped into the passenger’s seat, clipping his antenna on the roof of the car causing it to bend a little, but he didn’t seem to realise nor react to it. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s go!”

Again, Steve was just gawking at the silver, now bent, piece of metal and trying to find the words that could express how very confused he was, but Tony gave him one more look of desperation, clapping his hands which caused the cop to snap out of it and place his hands at 10 and 2 before slamming his foot down on the acceleration, siren blaring loudly as they took to the streets.

“Damsel!?” Steve repeated.

“She’s wearing an all-black fur coat, with a diamond necklace!”

“I thought— “

“Let **_me_** do the thinking, Rogers! You drive!”

Steve swerved around the corner, the heavy back of the car drifting along the road before they reached the park. He leaped out of the car, with Tony taking the lead.

“She’s this’a way!” Tony pointed out, grabbing Steve’s arm and tugging him the right away through the huge green park. They both ran together with Steve following Tony’s guide.

“Watch out!” Steve shouted just as Tony was about to step his huge boots in a bed of sunshine yellow pansies. Tony gasped loudly and jumped over them instead, Steve doing the same.

“There! Over there!” Tony pointed with his red and gold gloved hand.

“Where?” Steve asked, the sun beaming right into his face, forcing him to lower his visor on his cap.

“Here! Over here!” A young lady standing by a tree signalled, waving her arms back and forth for help when she saw the two coming.

Steve’s heart was buzzing with adrenaline, running as quickly as he could and zipping past Tony to help this young woman. Tony pouted when he was overtaken, by foot no less, “Go go Stark rocket boots!”  he jumped up with his boots catching the light again, just as they had done before, the cyan glow illuminating the grass below whist he quickly sped past Steve- the boots allowing him to fly far higher than the already tall policeman was.

Steve skidded to a halt in front of the young woman, with Tony flying past and clearly struggling to stop, so instead he performed a giant U turn but that wasn’t before the wind below generated by the jet of the boots managed to blow away a young couples well organised picnic, yelling “Sorry!” on his way back to Steve and the young lady.

The young cop panted to catch his breath, struggling to speak for a moment. “Mmm-ma’am…” he managed to say between huge puffs. “What seems to be the problem?”

“My darling, my daughter is stuck in that tree!” she wailed, clutching her pearl necklace.

“Fur coat—diamonds—“ Steve turned his line of sight to the tree and suddenly the excitement and desperation seemed to fade, all this time he had presumed that they were going to save a real damsel in distress, but just as Fury had assigned them to; it was kitten duty. There she was, sat in the tree with her black silky coat, meowing loudly in distress, her diamond collar glittering in the sunlight that managed to break through the leaves in the tree she was caught in. “Oh golly…” He rubbed the back of his head knowing full well he never would’ve have raced knowing it was just a cat.

“Oh my sweetheart, she’s so scared!” the woman continued on, her white curls bouncing with every overly dramatic head movement she made.

“Don’t you worry madam!” Tony chimed in with his much louder, much more confident tone. “This may be an **_un-fur-tunate_** situation but it’s far from a **_cat-astrophe_**! We’ll get her down in a jiffy, especially now that I’m on the case.” He hovered, floating up to the tree. “Now kitty kitty, see, I’ve got whiskers too.” He gestured to his goatee, before a leaf brushed by. The cat was approaching Tony, taking slow cautious steps on the tall tree branch whilst Steve observed keenly, worried about Tony when the leaf brushed by his nose again.

“Aaaah….” He held his hands out for the cat, “ahhh… ACHOO!” There it was, Tony sneezed loudly and flew back, crashing into a hedge sculpture of a giraffe. The cat meanwhile was so startled by the huge noise that Tony had made that it darted down the tree and jumped straight into Steve’s arms.

Well, that was _one_ way of getting the job done.

The black, fluffy-coated feline nuzzled into the warmth of Steve’s arms, purring loudly with satisfaction when it nestled against his chest. Steve stared, wide-eyed, at the fluff-ball while it vibrated whilst purring, the older woman stepping up to Steve with her lace gloved hands covering her cherry red lipstick coated lips.

“Oh, officer! How can I ever thank you?” She reached over to pluck the ball of fluff from the policeman; it meowed in protest at being tugged away from the warm bosom of the cop but eventually settled back in the safe arms of its owner. Meanwhile Steve’s attention was drawn toward Tony instead of answering the question posed to him. Tony poked his head up from the bushes; how could Steve miss that crooked antenna peeping above the greenery?

He jogged over and held out a hand to the man, though at that moment he was questioning what part of him was really ‘man’, first he flew into the office, then he had that thing poking out of his head and just moments ago he flew up to the tree with those mysterious jet boots that Steve was pretty sure only existed in the movies that he liked to watch.

Tony could see stars flying above his head, eyes rolling around, dazed from the fall. In fact, Tony was so dazed that even Steve could see those stars. At first he wondered if he was seeing things but then realised that there were little lights on the rim of the fedora that were projecting stars flying above him, just like a cartoon. Again, Steve had to stare for a second before brushing them away and grabbing Tony’s gloved hand and picking him up with a heave.

“Holy smokes…” Steve muttered whilst Tony rested his arm on Steve’s shoulder, clutching him for support.

“I know right?! That was a heckuva save! I’m okay though. Must be grass allergies, I hate coming out from the lab because of it.” He rubbed his red nose.

“No—I mean… Holy smokes…” Steve pointed to the tips of Tony’s jacket that was trailing with smoke, leaving streams whenever Tony tried to swivel around to take a look.

“I’m on fire?! Put it out! This is an Armani coat!” He waved his hands around. Suddenly, that cool collected demeanour Tony had before in the office, briefly, had faded into the image of a fumbling inspector.

Steve ran behind him and started batting at the tails of the long trench coat, trying to put out the flames, that was seconds before—

“Go go Stark fire extinguisher!”  The outer side of Tony’s calf seemed to fold back, the soft trouser material suddenly appearing hard and rigid like metal before it pushed out a bright, small compact tube which he stooped down to pick up, trying to hold it over his shoulder and attempted to spray the foam behind him.

Success! It put out the flames, covering them in white foam which extinguished the flames, but they weren’t the only things to be sprayed. Steve was crouched down, covered in white foam, slowly wiping it away with the side of his fist as he peered up at Tony.

“Yikes, seems you got a little… Schmutz…” Tony gestured to Steve’s face.

“Yeah, I got that…” He stood up, taking off his cap and cleaning his face with his sleeve, not that it helped him look any more presentable.

Tony skimmed his hand over the back of his hat, rubbing it and then shrugging with a smooth, yet embarrassed grin on his face. “I uh, it’s sensitive tech, combusts a lot… Gotta have a handy dandy fire extinguisher, right?”

The smell of foam flew up Steve’s nose and made him cough, speckles flying everywhere over the green grass. He could feel all eyes on him that very moment as he turned his attention up to the woman who he had thought was behind him. Turns out she was next to him, too close, and while he was shaking off the foam he’d claimed a new victim – the little black cat and the lady were covered in the remnants he had wiped off carelessly off his uniform and face.

“Geez Louise! I’m sorry ma’am!” Steve exclaimed, reaching over to try and meekly dust a little of the foam off the black cat.

She screamed a high pitched shrill shriek when Steve touched the cat again, pulling it back. “Stay away officer! Until you get that… Whatever it is under control..!” She yelled, pointing at Tony.

Tony huffed and corrected his hat, glancing over at Steve. There was no way that Steve could blame those big blues staring back at him, sure, it was like dealing with a child so far… a child with about a dozen gadgets, but Tony was just trying to help and Steve could clearly see that.

“We apologise, ma’am, rest assured—“

“How can I rest assured when that’s on the streets? Good day, sir!” She stomped away, even though it was hard for Steve to take her dramatic switch in gratitude so seriously when she had bits of white foam over her clothes.

Steve returned to brushing himself off, his hands sticky from the strange fluid as the bubbles started to disappear. “You okay there, detective?”

“Yeah. Happens all the time.” He smiled, a little sadly.

“What happens? Allergies?”

“Nothin’, s’not important. Let’s get going.” Tony flicked his antennae, “I’m pickin’ up a new job… Another kitten, down by the fancy houses…” Maybe he was a little too used to being called a ‘thing’, but it wasn’t his fault – but Steve didn’t know that. Anyway, Tony’s priority was not to get too attached, partners like this one always left for one reason or another, he was just counting the seconds now.

Overwhelmed didn’t quite cover it, even as Steve began to walk back to the car with his new partner.


	4. Chapter 4

 

 “Just hold on a second, y’mind giving me the skinny? Listen buddy, detective, all I’ve heard about you is that you’re a special detective but all this? Rocket boots, gizmos coming out of your leg? Glowing hands? I need to know what the heck is going on!”

“You mean they didn’t tell you?” Tony craned his neck to get into the car, peering over at Steve who was busy with an entire box of tissues that he’d found in the car, desperately trying to clean himself and his once pristine uniform off.

“No, I think they skipped the whole ‘I’m working with a robot’ thing…”

“Robot? No, that’s not right. More like… A cyborg, yeah, an augmented human. Cyborg sounds neat though, reminds me of those movies where the guy was half-robot half-cop, geez, I love those movies—any who, yes, I’m a special agent, under a project funded by the NYPD. You see, they wanted to make the perfect detective and of course, I’m the perfect specimen…” He broke to flash Steve a charming ear to ear grin with his pearly whites, “Before this I was a detective, one of the best in the business if I do say so myself.” He wasn’t. In fact, Tony was far from it, sure he was one of the smartest but there was a difference in being a desk jockey and actually taking to the field. “I used to make gadgets, all the time and use them in my work.” That part was true. Tony was once a detective famed for his ingenuity. “One day, while chasing down an infamous crook – Victor Von Doom—I was, well, it was a car accident. My wheels went off the road and then there ya have it, with the work of a great doctor though, using some schematics we’d put together beforehand it’d turned me into… Me. Part machine, part human.”

Tony was right when he’d told Steve before that it sounded just like it was straight out of a movie; in fact, this sounded more like straight out of the comic books that Steve was prone to reading and drawing in his spare time. His hands rested on the wheel and he tried to not look too blown away by the whole story, but it made sense, to some degree.

“So you’re basically a prototype?” he was hesitant to ask.

Tony shrugged and took his hat off to try and straighten the silver tiny antenna that was poking out of it, hands fiddling around with it. “Basically. You could say that.”

“And you’re entirely regulation?”

There was a small pause between words that worried Steve. “Not entirely…” Tony trailed off, “like I said, I enjoy building things so I like working on myself, just off the record, between you and me since you seem like a swell guy so far. I mean by this point I woulda had at least one guy yelling at me for doing something or other.”

There it was, that little tightness he felt in his chest began to swell when Tony had said those last words. Sure, he had been confused and a little scared of Tony at first given his enigmatic reputation and then the robotics that startled him, but when he explained there was nothing really dislikeable about him. “They yell at you a lot, huh?”

Again, Tony shrugged, not particularly caring to elaborate.

“Well, Mr. Rogers, we have to get to the next joint and save the feline in distress,” he deflected, thinking perhaps he’d said too much.

“You’re right, we ought to get back to work…” Steve grabbed the hat from Tony

“Wait! What’re you?--?”

Before he knew it, Steve was busy trying to straighten out the metal wire, and did so with ease. He was surprisingly nimble, for someone of his muscular stature. Tony stared at him with surprise, his mouth hanging slightly open while Steve helped him, feeling how Steve comfortably placed it back on his head.

“There, all fixed.”

“Good as new!” Tony tilted his hat, just so that the little fringe he had could poke out from underneath. “Sometimes you just need a little elbow grease huh?”  

Steve replied with a simple smile, one that confused Tony, but most of all gave him a sense of ease he hadn’t gotten from his previous partners. It made him smile, warmer than before as he kept his head forward and let Steve take the wheel, driving to their next spot.

The cop knew that this would definitely be interesting.

***


	5. Chapter 5

It had certainly been a long first week for Steve; rescuing cats, one after the other. He did wonder how frequent this problem really was, if there were really that many cats stuck up trees, but having Tony there really did make the job a lot easier in the long run. He had all these fancy gadgets; from jets to torches coming out from the tips of his fingers. He would always get greeted by the others with small chuckles when they saw the scrapes and band aids that he was covered with.

When he’d returned on from his first day on duty he was surrounded by the four that had greeted him in the staff room; all demanding details, but Steve wasn’t one to talk behind a person’s back so he just nodded and shrugged most of the time, regaling them with stories about wacky cat owners.

One thing he did notice was how the civilians seemed a little scared of Tony, and truth be told he had been at first too, so he didn’t blame them. It was all a case of trying to reassure them that Tony wasn’t harmful and meant well, which the man himself constantly tried to prove. His efforts didn’t fall on deaf ears, especially when Steve was right there with him keenly observing everything he had to offer. He seemed so determined to do well, despite the (small) hiccups that he made, and Steve appreciated his company. It seemed that they were both enthusiastic individuals that had one common goal; to make the city a safer place.

They had both been on kitten duty for an entire week and everything was starting to become routine, which wasn’t great for men like Steve and Tony who would often thrive on excitement and adrenaline. Whilst they were on patrol in their (now cleaned up) cop car, Steve sighed quite audibly.

“What’s wrong, Rogers?”

Steve shook his head, trying to remind himself that he was lucky to have this job in the first place, knowing full well that he shouldn’t have been looking a gift horse in the mouth. “Just a little bored, is all. I’m sure we’ll find something to do.”

“Seems we’ve rescued all the cats in the city,” Tony concurred, resting his head on the back of the chair, his hat just balancing on the top of his head, about to tip off at any small movement.

“I guess so…” There was an awkward silence between the two. Steve’s  long fingertips drummed the steering wheel. “I suppose we should head back to the station then, fill out some reports.” If there was one thing worse than kitten duty it was being a desk jockey – sitting indoors and filling out reports all day.

Tony instead held up his hand, indicating Steve to hold that thought while he pulled out the antennae from his hat and then placed his thumb to his ear, squinting.

“What’re you— “

“Shh…” Tony whispered. “I hear reports of a bank robber, just downtown! He’s gettin’ away, there are other cops assigned to the chase but they’re still on it, you know if we go now we could beat them to it!”

Steve met Tony’s eyes with surprise, shocked that he was willing to go off their assigned task, but relieved too. He placed both hands firmly on the wheel, grinning.

“Buckle your seatbelt, Tony; we’re goin’ for a ride!”

Tony beamed, brighter than ever, fastening the belt and winding down the windows. “Let’s go!”

With his eyes fixed on the road, foot pushing on the gas pedal a couple of times to rev up the old engine that seemed to more apt to spit back at him rather than revving (it was an old car, so it took a few tries to get it to purr) before he floored it as hard as he could. The car zipped down the road with Tony sticking his hand out of the window to make a blue alternating light with the one that was in the palm of his glove, sirens blaring as they practically flew down the road.

The wind pushed through their hair, so much so that Tony had to keep one hand on his hat to keep it on. Steve’s short curtains were incredibly out of shape but he could fix them later; that was the least of his concerns right now.

“Go go Stark radar!”

Just under the rim of Tony’s cap a small flap opened up, and sliding down were a pair of black sunglasses that fitted firmly and comfortably on the bridge of Tony’s nose. He stared forward, what Steve couldn’t see was that the pair of ordinary looking sunglasses actually had a radar system, on it were a few green blips and of course the robber was the one that was going far quicker than the others, trying to get away before any other police cars neared.

“Take a left!”

Steve hit the wheel and spun it to make a dramatic left as instructed.

“No no, your other left!”

“You mean my right?”

“That’s the one!”

He placed his hand on the hand brake, pushing it down and drifting the car to do a 180, the smell of burning rubber wafting into the open windows as a puff of smoke was coughed out of the exhaust of the old vehicle, struggling to keep up with Steve’s fast pace.

Once back on course Tony continued to navigate. “Left, Straight, keep goin’!” he shouted with excitement, hearing the buzz of adrenaline ringing through his ears. Steve felt exactly the same way, eyes on the road until they spotted the end of a purple and yellow painted Peugeot just over the hill.

Steve gestured by tipping his head, eyes on the back of the oddly painted foreign car. “That’s gotta be it!” 

“Bingo! Seems this racer isn’t going to make it to poll position.” Tony quipped, opening the door of their moving car.

“W-what are you doing?! Stark! Get back in here!”

“I can get to him quicker with my boots.” Tony said, gasping and ducking back into the car when the open door knocked a lamp post with a loud PANG and flew off, hearing a couple of angry civilians scorning in the distance as the door rolled on the sidewalk with a loud screech.

Steve winced, knowing that the chief was going to yell at him for this, his eyebrows slanted in pain for the poor car. Tony didn’t stay in the car for long, though, instead he quickly darted back out and decided to try and balance on the hood of the car, making it harder and harder for Steve to see.

“Tony! I can’t see!” Steve tried to shout out the window.

Tony crouched a little before jumping courageously off the hood, “Go go Stark jet boots!”  And just as Steve had seen before, the boots flickered cyan before lighting up completely and he launched himself from the hood of the car to try and land on the hood of the oddly coloured car, but just as always it was never that easy with Tony.

Steve’s eyes widened with panic, he could feel his heart drumming as he inhaled sharply. Over the course of the week he’d grown somewhat attached to his new friend, the last thing he wanted was for him to get hurt. “Stark!”

Tony’s boots flickered whilst he was in the air, his air time vastly decreasing just before they shorted out. “Go go Stark fantastic-arms!” He stretched his hands out, trying to reach the bumper of the car but they didn’t extent to a normal length, no it was far beyond that. They extended with mechanical tubing stretching out to allow Tony to grab onto the bumper, just as he wanted. But oh no, it wasn’t _just_ as he wanted, Tony failed to get enough momentum and his feet were going to collide with the ground.

Luckily, the genius-detective had a plan B, and it was one of his favourite plans too.

“Go go Stark roller-skates!”

The jet covers veiled the soles of the boots then from under that a set of wheels slid out just before he touched the ground, luckily. The wheels touched the tarmac and there Tony was, hands wrapped around the rear bumper and wheels allowing him to tail the car as though he were attached, extended arms making it somewhat difficult to stay in place with the constant swerving of the car.

“Get off my car!” The strong French accent shouted from the driver’s seat.

“Not likely, buddy!” Tony cackled, his extended arms slowly shortening their distance from him and the car.

Steve was mesmerized and in awe of the emergency tactics that Tony had just deployed, fixed on him when he was reminded by the loud sirens that he had a job to do, so he didn’t have long to stare and wonder what else Tony had up his sleeve. Quickly he slammed down the acceleration, trying to get the old coughing car to go as fast as it could.

“C’mon, c’mon…” Steve whispered under his breath, desperate to catch up with Tony. All things considered he was actually worried about him, wondering if the driver had a gun, then Tony would really be in trouble.  They could only slip up so much before they were caught out, Steve knew that for sure. But it was no use; the car wouldn’t go any faster.

Tony skated on the road as though he were on a jet-ski, zooming down along with the strange car’s every move. The wind pushed through his jacket and caused it to fly and flap around in the wind, oh the joys of having long clothing. He was about to reach for his hat to keep it on but when he lifted his hand from the bumper he almost flew off course, so he quickly tried to hoist himself onto the back of the car. There really was no time to waste.

He climbed up, heaving his body to the roof, turning his head when Steve ended up driving side by side. He’d done it; he’d managed to push the car to its very limits while Tony was preoccupying the driver. Luckily all that pervious swerving had given Steve some time to close the gap between them and Steve grabbed hold of the radio.

“Pull over!” he demanded.

“Never! You’ll never catch me alive!” The driver said, twirling the tips of his moustache and laughing maniacally, swerving the car straight into Steve’s. The old car was already suffering and Steve knew for well that it wouldn’t withstand battering from a much newer import.

Steve persisted with his maneuvers, trying his hardest to keep close to reach into the car eventually and stop the driver by force, but all he could do was push it.

“Tony, we’ve gotta get this car to stop!”

That was the first time he’d called him by his first name, properly. It just slipped out by instinct, smoothly sliding off the tip of his tongue.

“You got it, boss!” Tony extended his hands down, into the car window as the moustached driver screamed with fear, not knowing what on earth was happening – seeing these two long robotic hands reach into his car and fiddle about with the steering wheel, but all that happened was Tony’s hands getting slapped away by quite powerful blows. The driver was clearly a martial artist of some sort, a small slap was enough to get Tony’s hands back, feeling the pain even though his limbs were metal.

“Yeowch!” Tony wailed, shaking his head and then reaching one of his hands into his pockets. “Now I know I had it somewhere…”

“Tony…! We don’t have time, if this carries on he’ll reach the highway and then we’re goners!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this, Rogers!” He replied, reaching into his pocket and pulling out one of the gadgets he was working on in the car from time to time. Then again Tony was constantly working on new things when they were alone on patrol, between cat-rescues. This one was a small circular device. “Handy dandy Stark destabiliser!”  He beamed, holding it up in the air for that added dramatic effect, before slamming it down on the hood of the car that he’d managed to scramble to. At first nothing happened, it just fizzled and Tony frowned, muttering to himself before tapping it a few times and then suddenly—

ZAP!

He was suddenly struck by an electrical pulse that was emitted from the device and went flying back, yet again. Tony flying into the distance seemed to be a common developing trend, apparently.

“Tony!” Steve yelled, but luckily the device kicked in, the electrical pulses forcing the car to skid to a sudden halt. Steve slammed on the brakes and his car screeched to a stop. Now the bad guy swung his car door open and began to run out; surprisingly, he was quick on his feet.

Steve, however, was worried about Tony, slipping out of the open space where the car door used to be and jumping out, climbing on top of his rival’s car for a second with ease to ensure that Tony was okay, but when he saw the detective slowly get to his feet and fix his hat on, he knew that he was fine. Moments later there was a stream of bright cyan as Tony resorted to using his jet boots again. Steve made a mental note to remind Tony to fix those boots when he could.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony zoomed as quickly as he could to reach the man that appeared to be leaping down the street, jumping from streetlight to light, and swinging himself around to gain momentum then throwing himself to the next like some sort of circus performer. He was astoundingly acrobatic in his purple and yellow leotard.  It was up to Tony to weave through the lampposts and chase down the leaping Frenchman that was singing _Frère Jacques_ ever so loudly as they darted down the road. It was hard enough as it was trying to go past the metal posts; Tony had to quickly dodge from side to side to avoid the civilians that were walking down the streets who clearly the bad guy that he was chasing didn’t care about.

Eventually, the leaper reached an alley and spun around, noticing that he’d gotten himself caught in a dead end.

“Sacre bleu!” He turned around, catching the bright red gleam of Tony’s rocket boots and gloves, heading straight toward him. The man twirled the corners of his moustache in anticipation as Tony neared.

“Looks like you’re cornered!”

The man laughed. “Oh, am I?”

Tony was about to pin the guy to the wall, palms facing him before the leaper grabbed Tony’s hand once it neared him and threw him into the wall behind him. Tony, with such a strong momentum powering him had no choice but to crash into the wall.

“YAH--” Tony yelped, smacking into the wall.

That HURT. It really did. Tony was dazed, struggling to get up off the ground. He could hear parts of him pop out of place; unfortunately the impact was so hard that a couple of screws had fallen loose. Again the projection appeared above his head of birds singing and circling around the top of his hat while he smacked his glove, trying to get it to power up again to work but it kept morphing between a real looking hand and his red metal glove with the mechanism having fallen out of joint.

“Come on, come on…” he murmured desperately, trying to fix the screw back into place, which was hard when his hand kept changing.

“Oh-ho! You came close to catching me, mon ami, but it appears I have outsmarted you, as I will do the rest of your fellows!” He chuckled. “You will remember my name, Batroc, the leaper, the pride of Paris!”

“I’ve been to Paris, in fact, I visit France extremely regularly. You’re a wanted criminal; I remember seeing your ugly mug plastered all over Charles du Gaulle airport!”

Batroc pat his chest and grinned, twirling the tips of his moustache once more. “My reputation will continue to expand as I take this to my employer!” He held up a huge emerald that he’d stolen from the bank vault.

“Your employer?”

“Oui… none other than the marvellous V— “

Tony’s eyes widened as Steve ran in, coming up from behind and punching Batroc square across the face. The first thing that he’d seen from a distance was the way that he’d thrown Tony into that wall, and Steve was **_seething_**. There was no way he was going to let his partner get hurt, not after what had happened with his old partner back home. Besides, there was something just so innocent about Tony; a pureness and determination that inspired Steve to do a better job too, he couldn’t let him get hurt. So, when he managed to catch up he greeted Batroc with a mighty smack in the face for hurting his companion.

“You okay, Tony?” He asked.

Tony stared, wide eyed with awe. It was amazing that under that uniform such a powerful man was hiding away. He could clearly see Steve was strong but that smack in the face confirmed it; one of Batroc’s teeth had flown right out of his mouth.

“Y-yeah! Fine, Rogers! Nab him up, will ya!” Tony could hear the sirens from afar approaching, remembering that it must have been the actual team that was dispatched to deal with the leaper finally arriving.

Batroc spun around after clutching his jaw and kicked at Steve, only for Steve to grab his leg and throw him over his shoulder. The leaper was agile, though, and landed straight on his feet. The Frenchman smirked, holding his fists up, finally prepared for a fight with someone that clearly knew how to fight.

Steve wasn’t going to mess around, not when he could hear the others approaching. He needed everything to be cleaned up by the time the others arrived to show that he and Tony were fully capable of handling the bigger cases. The leaper threw a punch, but Steve dodged to the left, ducking and then countering with a perfectly planted uppercut to his chin, sending him up to the sky. Batroc kicked his legs out, obviously using his best assets to take Steve out. Once more Steve punched Batroc’s right foot away whilst ducking under the left that flew above his head, tilting his body back and throwing his weight on the leaper which sent him crashing to the ground.

“Tony! Cuff him!” he called out whilst he had the criminal pinned down, hearing him squirm and grunt, trying desperately to reach for the emerald that had flown out of his hand when he had been punched the first time.

Tony belly crawled toward Batroc, reaching for Steve’s belt and grabbing the set of cuffs off it, since it was closer. Steve felt the fumble by his rear and blushed profusely, clearing his throat to brush those thoughts to one side, satisfied when he heard the click of handcuffs after Tony had restrained Batrocs wrists together.

Tony crawled a little further and tugged out his own set of cuffs to snap the guy’s ankles together too. If there was one thing that he’d observed it was that Batroc’s legs were extremely powerful, and if they were restrained at least he couldn’t get away. Steve sighed with relief and got to his feet, grabbing Batroc by the collar and holding him up, hearing French curse words being muttered under his breath.

Tony slowly got up, brushing his jacket off again and frowning at the leaper. “Go go Stark soap!” He said, his trouser pocket making a DING sound. Steve turned to him, confused as to what he was doing next. Tony reached into it and tugged out a bar of soap, pushing it into Batroc’s mouth.

Steve stared, eyes going back from the bar of soap to Tony again.

The inspector shrugged casually. “What? Guy has a potty mouth, French is a beautiful language and it’s being abused.” Not to mention he didn’t like anyone swearing at his new partner.  He turned his head from Steve and adjusted his hat, looking down at the sparks flying from his arm.

Steve stepped up to him, dragging the leaper’s feet on the ground effortlessly. “You okay there?” He asked with soft concern, eyes on his hand.

“I’m going to need to go to the lab to get it fixed and…” He tilted to the side to try and take a glance at their car, noticing he smoke wafting up from under the bonnet where it was clumsily parked. “I think we ought to go to the lab to get that fixed anyway, before Chief Fury makes us do all our patrols by foot. I mean it’s not a problem for me, but something tells me you want to be in _all_ the high speed chases.”

Steve nodded, glancing up as the rest of the police cars pulled up.

Carol stepped out of her car, striding up to Steve and taking Batroc from him. “You two are in big trouble, you know this wasn’t your call.”

“I know, I know but we were closer.” Tony began to say. “Listen, we got him, didn’t we?”

“You destroyed a police car in the chase; you know how much that costs Tony. The chief doesn’t like you; don’t give him an excuse to fire you!” she warned him, handing Batroc to one of the other cops to shove him into the back of her car.

“I got it, Steve and I did a great job though!”

“Yeah, Tony’s great to have as my partner, I’ve never been so glad to have someone with his smarts and initiative around.” Steve patted Tony’s back heartily, almost making Tony’s hat fall off, which he quickly caught and placed back on top of his head proudly, glancing back at Steve with a soft smile of gratitude.

The truth was that Tony had never been complimented like that by a partner of his with such a genuine kindness. There was a loud drum in his chest that grabbed the attention of Carol and Steve, looking at him curiously before he tapped over the centre of his chest and attempted a smile to deflect their attention.

“I just must’ve hit a few parts, they need fixing…” he reassured them, even though it was the sound of his loud heart beating against some of his metal components. He’d never heard it do that before, in fact it felt strange, but whenever he so much as looked at Steve, admiring those sharp azure eyes and the way that a few rogue strands of blond would poke out from his perfectly formed coif, he felt that same beating. He just had to make sure it wouldn’t drum loudly like that; the last thing he wanted was for anyone to be concerned about his functionality.

Carol frowned at the two, though she was surprised that Steve was giving him such praise. It seemed like a foreign concept, for Tony Stark of all people, the clumsy genius detective that always managed to get things caught on fire, getting praised for his teamwork and actually managing to apprehend a bad guy – that wasn’t charred up and likely to press charges, even. Her hands rested on her hips and reluctantly she spoke, “You get everything fixed up and I’ll put in a good word for you with the Chief.”

Tony held up his hand to speak, “Yeah, we were actually just on our way back to the lab to get everything fixed, Officer Danvers.”

“Good, make sure you do,” she instructed, giving the two strict eyes before heading off with Batroc, ready to send him straight to the slammer.

Steve sighed with relief, feeling the stress and worry of getting a strict telling off melt off his shoulders. “Okay, let’s go to this lab then, I’ll push the car.”

“I’ll try and help!” Tony said, scooting to Steve’s side eagerly.


	7. Chapter 7

Just as Tony had said, they headed straight for a lab that was located in the center of the city, luckily one which they weren’t too far away from. Turns out that huge tower that Steve had taken a gander at when he’d first explored the city on one of his lunchtime adventures actually entirely belonged to the detective that he was now working alongside with.  He couldn’t believe it when Tony had told him whilst they were pushing the car; in fact, it almost made him stumble. 

When they’d reached the foot of the huge tower with Stark written on it, it all fell into place. Here Steve had thought that it was simply just a common name, given that he didn’t do much research into it. He wasn’t too into doing research about big businesses and companies when he was too focused on crime-busting. He actually cursed himself for not putting it together.

When they walked into the huge building Tony guided Steve over to the elevator and he took off his hat, threading his fingers through his hair and smiling proudly at Steve.

“You like it huh?”

“It’s… Huge.”

“That’s what she said.”

“What?”

“Oh… Never mind,” Tony brushed Steve off, proud of his own joke as he waited to get to the basement level, tapping his foot impatiently to the elevator music.

With a loud PING the doors opened and revealed what Steve could only have dreamed of; a whole lab, with thingies and do-hickeys everywhere; pipes and tubes, mechanical pieces, wires and robots wheeling themselves around the place to work on different things.

“Ah, Tony!” A voice yelled from the other side of the room. Steve’s eyes followed it curiously only to see long arms stretching up and waving from across the room, now Steve had thought he’d seen everything with Tony – it looked as though this guy’s limbs were actually stretching, but Steve pegged it down to tech similar to Tony’s. Eventually he revealed himself from behind a huge chalkboard, walking up to Tony with his arm returning to its regular length, but unlike Tony Steve couldn’t spot any coils or hear a retraction mechanism.

There was just so much to look at, it was hard to keep his eyes on just the man that approached them, smiling at Steve before he tried to brush an oil stain off his lab coat, though he only made it look worse.

“Ah, you brought a friend from the department back? Pleasure to meet you, Officer, I’m Doctor Richards, Reed Richards. I work alongside the police in their research and development team.” His arm extended again to offer his hand to Steve, even though he was standing a fair distance away. Steve couldn’t help but blink once at it, trying to tilt his head to find a screw or panel like Tony had in his arms, but he couldn’t see a thing.

“Oh, Reed’s special too, he was part of an experiment when he went exploring in space back in his astronaut days and was affected by some strange cosmic rays, got a special power and all—elasticity. Isn’t it FANTASTIC? That’s why I call him Mr. Fantastic; he modelled my extending arms over his own. Plus, fantastic rhymes with elastic. See what I did there?” Tony explained enthusiastically before Steve had even reached over to shake Reed’s hand. He’d read about that space exploration mission that had gone awry when they were hit by cosmic rays, but he never thought he’d meet one of the astronauts themselves.

“So you work with the police now?”  Steve clarified.

“Yes! Usually I work from my own building, but ever since… _The incident_ … I’ve been working alongside Tony, helping build and develop him into the man you see today; part man, part machine. He’s a perfect mix if I do say so myself, I’m quite proud of my work and I’m sure he’s a valuable asset to the rest of the department. He is rather unique and involves constant improvement. My calibration techniques assist Tony in performing far more efficiently.”

“Basically, I’d do it myself but it’s harder to work on myself alone.” Tony elaborated, cutting Reed off before he went on a long winded rant. “Reed’s one of my best friends from my college days, we both did some doctorates together so there’s no one I’d trust more to work on me.”

Steve nodded understandingly, wanting to explore this new lab but he had to hold himself back from tinkering with anything, especially since almost everything in that lab looked so delicate. His leg shifted, but just as he was about to move he felt something brush against it, so he peered down to see a metallic dog staring back up at him.

“Excuse me sir.” It spoke.

Steve jumped back. “Holy smokes!”

The dog tilted its head, its large ears flopping either side as it did. “Ah yes, Officer Rogers, Sir’s new partner. I’ve heard ever so much about you.” It spoke, returning to tending to the other bots, nudging them with the tip of his nose to attend to what they were supposed to be doing, tilting its head to Tony as a bot scooted over and began to work on his arms.

“That’s JARVIS, one of my first creations. His AI runs throughout this entire lab, he can speak through any machine but since I built that robot dog in my teens, I’m pretty attached to it. So he chooses to stay in there most of the time and keep me company when I’m out and about.”

The dog barked happily, its tail wagging when Tony’s arm was being fixed, it’s flashing LED eyes blinking.

That didn’t negate the fact that it was a talking dog, which really didn’t help ease Steve’s confusion any, even with the explanation. Still, everything in the lab that he was standing in needed explaining. He’d never seen anything like it in his entire life. He curiously moved over to a lava lamp and prodding it, as though that was the strangest thing in the lab.

“JARVIS, can you go ahead and get the car from upstairs?”

“Right away sir,” the dog replied, barking and then running over to the elevator. Steve’s brows furrowed right away, wondering how on Earth they were going to get a car down into the basement, but lo and behold, moments after querying it in his head, the ceiling above began to open, slots and panels moving out of joint with loud clunks of metal scraping against one another filling the room with noise. Slowly on a platform the smoking heap of a police car began to descend through the hole in the ceiling before the panels slid back into the places they were before and returned to a regular looking ceiling, well, somewhat regular with all the rivets now far more noticeable by Steve’s eyes.

The car sat in the middle of the lab, ready to be worked on. Right away bots scattered around it, eagerly examining it.

“Those are my boys, you’ve got Dum-E, Microchip, and that one with the arms is… Arms… I built them myself, pretty impressive, no?”

“Tony, you’re a helluva inventor, pardon my French.”

“That wasn’t French…”

“Yeah, it’s an expression—“

“I know what French is, I’ve been to France, we’ve just captured a French criminal…”

Steve’s palm smacked his own forehead hard enough to make a sound, frustrated by Tony’s banter, and he hesitantly peered through his fingers to see the detective flashing the toothiest of grins.

“Oh, I just love winding you up, Steve,” he teased, his now fixed hand covering his mouth as it regained the appearance of a regular hand rather than the glove. “But yes, before I was on the streets as a detective I was a humble inventor.”

JARVIS chimed in, “Humble is one word for it…”

Tony shot the robotic dog a small glare but Reed just agreed with a profound looking nod and turned back to his work, writing on the blackboard by stretching his extra elastic limb. It was clear that Reed was a man who intended to focus on work rather than deal with distractions.

“And you told me you wanted to do some good out on the streets, but your talents…”

“They aren’t wasted, my friend, they’re just put into a different place. You see, the schematics that were used to create me were… Mine and Reed’s brainchild, we thought of them together, with a lot of input from my friends back in the Air Force in regards to the jets and thruster power. I couldn’t have done it without Rhodey’s help. But anyway, Reed helped me build it and so now you have the best tool that the NYPD could possibly have!” He held out his hands, shimmying them a little to make a jazz hand gesture with tiny pieces of confetti flying from his sleeves.

Steve’s hand moved from his forehead to just over his mouth, attempting to stifle a laugh but doing an extremely poor job of it. “Yeah, clearly useful.”

“Hey! Cut me some slack!”

Steve rolled his eyes then laughed, once more stepping closer to Tony to brush a few pieces of glitter and sparkling paper off his shoulders.

“The car is almost done sir, modifications are almost complete. We’re currently uploading the newer AI system into its mainframe.”

“Whoa, that was fast…” Steve turned his head toward the car, watching the bots hard at work. One of them had a spray can, going back and forth with a hot rod red, another attached a huge spoiler to it – it hardly looked like the same car at all by this point. It didn’t even look police regulation; Steve was actually unsure whether ‘car 616’ would ever be able to sit in the police car park again without standing out like a sore thumb. “Uh, Tony, I’m not sure we can ride that…”

“Nonsense, it’s perfectly fine, right Reed?”

“Well, Tony is right. Police regulatory rules state nothing of the colour or accessories that are attached to the car, so long as it bears the crest of our police force and meets the speed requirements which this new model apparently surpasses, by far.” Reed stated from his corner. “Though, you must be a good driver, Mr. Rogers, I know Tony wouldn’t trust anyone with fast vehicles after… The accident.”

There it was again, mention of the ominous accident.

“Well…” Tony mumbled with a heavy sigh accompanying his words. “It’s about time I filled you in.”


	8. Chapter 8

“It was a year ago now, probably just a couple of months longer than that. The story began with me being a rich billionaire, a guy that was always swarmed by the press, New York’s hottest bachelor on the market that had it all; brains, looks, brawn—well, I could work on the brawn, but I wasn’t too bad looking. I was famed for my work on robotics…” Tony gestured for Steve to follow him deeper into the lab. All he had to do was snap his fingers and the lights instantly dimmed; only a few speckles of cyan and little torches held by the bots lighting the room up until Tony tapped something on his hat and placed it on a table, shooting up a projection from the top of it of what Tony used to look like. Truth be told, there wasn’t much of a difference to how he looked now. In the projection he looked tall and polished and lacked the huge trench coat he was sporting nowadays.

“You see, I’ve always wanted to do well in the world and I thought that philanthropy was the best way forward, setting up charities and so on. But that just wasn’t enough; I wanted to be hands on. That’s why I’ve always admired the police department and what they do, the law enforcement and well… Saving the city, **_that’s_** what I wanted to do. I’d had enough of sitting behind a desk, you see, I used to read this comic book about a guy in stars and stripes and he would always stand up for what he believed in, so I took his motto and decided to fight for liberty and justice.”

Steve nodded in understanding; that and he was all too familiar with those comic books, after all there was once upon a time when the policeman had been an aspiring comic book artist – but that was another story for another day.

 “Anyway, I wasn’t the only one in the robotics industry. Turns out that guy over there was in it too, but in a different field. He ventured more in space and dimensional travel and robotics that would help that sort, nanny bots for his future family too.  We’ve been friends since high school, and we decided to meet up and collaborate on a project.” Reed appeared in the hologram, looking significantly younger than he was now, even though it was only a year ago. It really showed how work would often age you with stress, though he still had his signature grey temples and messy brown hair as well as a light dust of stubble on his upper lip probably from days on end spent in the confines of a lab. There was really that much detail in a tiny hologram.

“So Reed and I were lab partners, working on a project as we’d volunteered to do so for the NYPD, while at the same time I was working on getting qualifications to become a trained detective, which were pretty easily obtained. You see, back in high school we had an acquaintance, a fellow scientist by the name of Victor Von Doom. Turns out the guy was sort of a big deal who ended up becoming the ruler of Latveria, that place in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, back in school he was that creepy guy that thought he knew everything and sort of hated us. Years go by and he’s some rich prince sort of fellow also aiming to pioneer in robotics. Thing is, he didn’t want to share his work with us and of course, we didn’t want to share with him. He and Reed go way back, but again that’s none of my business. Victor always had this darker side to his work anyway, he never wanted peace, it seemed to us like all he wanted was to create robots to destroy things rather than protect things. So we had to keep our work as far away from him as possible, even if he and Reed shared a working relationship beforehand.

“So Reed and I were collaborating, doing our work for the police, who I at that point worked for as a newly qualified detective, and drafted up plans for the perfect police robot. Only thing was, our prototypes constantly failed. They needed something much smarter than AI, they needed real brains. Regardless, our work became well known and admired and wanted by dozens.”

The little hologram on the table showed them presenting the idea to a committee and receiving a round of applause, the image suddenly changing to a beautiful young looking girl which Tony stared ever so fondly at.

“Anyway, we become relatively famous for our work. One night when I was out and about, coming back from a huge business meeting when my phone rings. My girlfriend at the time, Rumiko Fujikawa, was in trouble. She’d been kidnapped by Victor, who was trying to blackmail me for those schematics to make his own robots! Now there was no way I’d let that happen, so I managed to track Victor down in a warehouse and low and behold, we ended up in a high speed chase.”

Two cars appeared; a strange black one and Tony’s red Ferrari, zooming in front.

“I pulled out every trick in the book. At times I wished ‘geez, if only I could fly away from this person’, well now I can, but before that… I just didn’t have the capability. I drove as quickly as I could, and then… Would you believe it? I started heading back with Rumiko just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and that’s where it happened…”

Tony stopped, his hand placed over his chest for a while whilst JARVIS ran up to him and brushes its face against Tony in an attempt to lift his spirts enough to continue. Even Steve leaned over to comfort him, it seemed that even the memory of it was taking its toll on Tony.

“A huge Roxxon truck carrying oil was in our way, and we both crashed into it…” Tony’s eyes welled up and he covered his face for a moment with his hand. “Victor, who was chasing me, gets in it too… Rumiko… She didn’t make it. It’s… All my fault. I tried so hard to save her, in the end I just… Couldn’t do enough.”

Tony began to stammer, his chest aching at the memory of it. “Victor… I don’t know what happened to him, but I’m sure it was brutal. When I tried to find him, they’d taken him back to Latveria, probably with injuries leaving him nearly dead. That’s the last we heard of him. All of this was for some stupid schematics… Those very schematics that were used to save me. You see, Steve, my body was almost completely destroyed in the huge explosion when we crashed – I mean, think about it, oil tank and collision – of course there was an explosion. My body was taken back and I was a lost cause, about to be left to die, when Reed stepped in with the schematics and decided to use them to save me. So my own brainwork along with Reed’s was used to build me into the ideal robot, the ideal police tool, the perfect detective. Which is why and how I’m standing in front of you today.” Obviously there was some work needed on that ‘perfect’ police tool point, but Tony elected to leave that out for the time being.

“Tony…” Steve finally spoke, drawing his eyes away from the hologram of the man on the operating table. “Waking up to find out your girlfriend… I mean, I’ve been in the same situation. If we’re exchanging stories…” It was Steve’s turn. “I lost my partner while we were on patrol once, fighting a huge neo-Nazi gang. We’d managed to take them down but… It was on Brooklyn Bridge. We took them out but they’d cut our brakes and we flew off. My partner, Bucky Barnes, probably the snarkiest fella that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working alongside, I’d do anythin’ for the guy – we were practically brothers – anyway he managed to unlock my side of the door and unclicked my belt, left me to float out free whilst he was… Dragged down with the car. Strangely enough, they never found his body… I know it’s not the same as yours, but we both lost people we care about on duty.”

 His hand clasped Tony’s shoulder and he looked at him straight in the eye, as emotional as they both were at that point. “I know how you feel Tony,” Steve replied with a heartfelt stare of empathy.

Tony’s sad expression lightened a fraction. The agony and weight on his heart was solid and still very heavy. “You know… I loved her a lot, during the accident the shrapnel from the explosion went into my chest, near my heart. I always say that she took my heart when she left, since... I guess it’s never been the same.” 

“Tony…” Steve trailed off yet again. “You do have a heart, even if it’s assisted by that metal glowing thing under your chest, you still have a heart and it still beats. You’re the most caring person that I’ve met. Look at how many kittens we’ve saved, pal, that’s all because of you.” He smiled reassuringly, noticing how Tony’s eyes seemed to light up again.

“You really think so?”

“I know so, buddy.”

Tony sighed with relief. “You really are like that comic book character with the stars and stripes…” he mused aloud.

“What now?”

“Never mind.” Tony brushed him off. “Anyway… So, that was the accident, and now you know and realise how valuable these schematics are. That’s why I need to keep them secure.” Tony stood up and paced over to a huge machine, pressing a few buttons and tugging out a small disk, holding it up into the air. “These are the schematics. Now that you’re my partner you need to know too, to keep them safe at all costs. Reed’s here to help us, and you know how fantastic he is, he’ll keep them under lock and key as he has this whole time.”

 It was a privilege for them to have shared their experiences, with each story told he felt their bond become closer and closer. That and Steve had no trouble opening up to Tony, and vice versa. It had only been a week of them working together and yet they were already so close, it even took Steve by surprise but he embraced it. He loved Tony’s attitude, as much as he teased him for it and often got snarky comments and terrible puns in return, but what wasn’t to love about that?

“You can trust me Tony,” Steve said. “Your secret’s safe.”

Tony smiled back, wanting to tug Steve into a small hug. He did feel emotional after that, he may have been half robot because of his limbs but his heart and brain were still human. He was just an augmented human, one of the world’s first cyborgs. He resisted the embrace though, instead flashing a gentle smile and gesturing to the new and improved car. “Come on Rogers, let’s take you back.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Where is the emerald?!” A booming voice echoed from deep in the chasms of a dark layer.

“It appears Batroc has been captured.” A disgruntled voice replied, much higher than the one that had posed the question. The strangely formed robot with a huge head and tiny legs, seated on a floating chair with a tiny rocket thruster keeping it afloat, moved from screen to screen.

“By whom!?” The booming voice queried.

“It seems that it was… Inspector Stark again. Tony Stark.”

The hooded figure in the corner crushed the crystal wine glass that was once filled with luxuriously thick red wine in his hand as an annoyed white feline in his lap awoke from its slumber. It padded around in its owner’s lap for a while before glaring over at the floating head.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Doom!” The head yelled in that high pitch screech of a voice that it had, manically trying to return to the robots that were set up in a line by the back of the huge, dark room only lit by torches and a couple of monitors.

“Sorry is not **GOOD ENOUGH**!” he yelled, turning around in his swivelling, huge, leather chair, arms resting on either side as the feline in his lap made a loud meow in protest until his silver gauntlet-covered hand rest on top of its head, to which it closed its eyes with contentment. “I know, Morgan, we must get rid of Stark once and for all…” The cat purred, its tail brushing along Doom’s wrist. “MODOK, did Batroc at least manage to place the tracker on Stark?”

The floating head, MODOK (Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) cackled with pleasure as it flipped a switch and a red beeping dot appeared on the monitors. It seemed that during the brawl the leaper had managed to stick a tracker on the sole of Tony’s shoe.  “Indeed he did.”

“So we can locate him at any point?”

“Yes, in fact right now he’s heading towards Brooklyn.”

Doom’s fingertips traced along the ears of the feline in his lap, downward delicately until they reached the tip of its tail which it flicked up to try and meet as much of the cold metallic touch as it could.

“Perfect, now is the time then.” The gruff voice behind a mask spoke, the metal around his face causing his voice to echo ominously behind it, bright blues peering through the slits at the screens with interest, watching the red dot move quickly down the screen and along a street. “Now, we strike. I will get those plans, if it’s the last thing that I do!” He laughed darkly.

Soon Doctor Doom would have his own efficient minion. It was only a matter of time.

**

“How’re you enjoying it, Steve?” Tony asked, zipping down the street in their newly refurbished red sports car, which didn’t look anything like how it used to. Steve’s hands were on the wheel, but he wasn’t driving – the car was driving itself, zooming down each corner with intense speed and precision which truthfully scared the living daylights out of the blond. Red streaks from the taillights trailed in the dark night that they were driving in.

“It’s… Okay?” That sounded more confused than anything. “I mean I’d rather be driving myself!” Steve spoke loudly to try and be heard over the loud, purring engine.

“It’s great! By the way, her name is H.E.L.E.N. She’s a companion AI to JARVIS, she’s your driver right now so I’d be nice if I were you, Rogers.” Tony replied with a proud smile. “Isn’t it amazing? I managed to create an AI in a matter of moments.”

There was a rumble from the back seat and the little robotic dog poked its head between the two seats at the front, “Actually, it wasn’t moments, Sir. You’d worked on her previously just in case I failed. According to my calculations you spent days working on her…”

Tony reached his hand back to pat the bot on the head, to see its eyes flashing happily again when he did so. “Shhh, Jarvis, he doesn’t need to know that.”

Steve laughed and shook his head, smiling warmly at Tony.

“Do you want me to slow down, Mr. Rogers? Your heartrate has vastly increased.” The soft silky smooth voice of AI spoke from the dashboard.

“Uh, I’m fine!” Steve held a hand up.

Why was his heart beating that fast when he saw Tony so pleased with his creation, he asked himself. But internally, he knew the answer; he just wished that it wasn’t the one that he’d thought it’d be. He felt so happy to see Tony smile, he felt at ease around him.

Tony was easy to open up to, and Steve was a relatively guarded person so that was extremely difficult for him in the first place, but with him everything came naturally. Steve couldn’t help but laugh whenever he made a terrible joke, or whenever something exciting happened. While other cops would get annoyed with Tony, Steve would just laugh it off and help him out, after all that, in his head, was what partners were for – to help and support one another.

But there was something more.

Since the moment that he’d seen him he’d been drawn to him. At first, he wanted to say it was curiosity, but now he was second guessing himself, falling quiet as he sat in the car next to Tony. He bit the inside of his lip and looked out of the window at the passing sights, not really paying much mind to Tony’s antics when they’d reached a halt.

Tony stared at Steve who was busy looking out of his window, tentatively tapping his shoulder. Steve jumped out of his thoughts and blinked at the detective.

“Whoa, here already?” he asked, looking at his watch.

“Yeah! HELEN takes the best route, she gets traffic updates via a satellite that we have set up, she’s incredible, if I do say so myself.” Tony patted the dashboard lovingly, the car honking in response.

An old man peered out of a window of the old, beaten down set of apartments they were parked outside. Steve lived in the heart of Brooklyn which wasn’t exactly the nicest of areas. Tony wasn’t used to it, that was for sure. He shook his fist at the honking car and yelled.

“I think that’s my cue to get inside.” Steve spoke through a laugh, reaching for his uniform cap and carrying it under his arm. “You’re sure she’ll take you home safe and sound? We all know you hate driving after what you’d told me…”

“Yeah, she’s got me. Don’t worry, Steve!” The only thing that Tony could think about was the fact that Steve worried about him. It wasn’t being scared of him, it was genuine worry and care; he could see it from that soft look in his eyes. Again with that loud drumming in his chest, he tapped it a few times to make sure that his reactor hadn’t malfunctioned yet again, then turned to watch Steve walking up his stoop.

“See you tomorrow, Tony.”

“Wait!” Tony quickly tugged something out of the pocket of his long jacket, fumbling as he tried to open the car door but eventually pulling it open and then jumping out, tripping on his feet but maintaining his balance (just) as he ran up those few stairs to meet Steve, taking his hand and placing something in it. “I almost forgot this!”

Steve’s cheeks went red when he felt Tony’s hand brush against his own, even if it wasn’t real it was still… Well, Tony. He brought his hand up and looked at what he was given; a silver watch shaped like a star. His eyes lit up the second he looked at it. “Tony, you shouldn’t have… I mean, I didn’t do much to deserve this.”

“It’s more than just a watch, Steve. That’s a communication radio-watch, you hold it up to your mouth, talk, and it’ll come straight to me.” Tony gestured to his hat. “And well, I shaped it like a star because I know you like stars. Almost every shirt I’ve seen you in when I’ve met you after you’ve changed, heading home, you’ve had a star on. So there you go.”  He flushed with embarrassment himself, his foot nervously kicking a tiny little pebble that was by the steps.

 “Geez… That’s incredible, you betcha I’ll call you on this whenever I need you!”

“It goes two ways too, so I’ll call you.”

“Any time.” Steve placed a friendly arm around Tony, before slipping the watch on.

“You know, there was something I’ve always wanted to tell you. Since I’ve worked with the police you’re the only guy that’s been nice to me, you’re the only one that’s listened to me. I know I’m not the best detective in the world. After all, I’m the prototype, but you’ve seen past that. Other cops, well, they’ve been put off by not only me but the reaction that I’ve gotten too. As you can tell, cyborgs like me aren’t taken kindly to. People are afraid of what they don’t know and it takes a long time for people to accept change and evolution. Now I’m not saying that all detectives should be replaced by me but I’m a step forward. You strike me as a traditional guy…”

“You’re not wrong. At first I was on the fence about taking you under my wing, Tony.” Steve admitted. “But each time you’ve proven me wrong, and I appreciate that. You’ve shown me how capable you are and how much this job means to you. We’ve shared experiences and to me that’s the best part of it all, sharing this with you.”

“I was discriminated against Steve,” Tony was hesitant to admit. He hated being the victim like that, but it was true and had been very evident in the park during their first mission. “But you… You stand up for me every time.”

“I won’t back down Tony.” He squeezed his shoulder lightly and they locked glances. “You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve met, and you’re smart too. You’ve taught me a trick or two and I think that we make a great team.”

“We do!” Tony said proudly.

Steve nodded, proud of his friend too. It was hard to think that someone who just wanted to do a good job had so much hatred directed toward him because he was modified, that shouldn’t have made a difference. In society, moving forward, Steve yearned for equality and this was a small step that they had to take. If he had to pave the way, then so be it, he was glad to do so. “So let’s just keep up the good work…”

“Hey Steve, I also… Noticed that you were into drawing, the way you doodle constantly in the car when we’re on patrol, and you know NYC has plenty of art galleries open. What say we head to one, one day?”

Right now it felt as though Steve’s heart was on cloud nine. It beat quickly, his cheeks already flushed as it was – thankfully the cold air cooled them a little, and the dim light of the street gave him some shade to hide beneath. Even if this was just a friendly gesture Steve appreciated it from the bottom of his heart. He was scared to get close to partners after losing his own, but this one was something really special, and he was very perceptive – noticing his love for the star design. It was more symbolic than anything; Tony had given him a star, which was probably why Tony was a detective in the first place, because he was sharp and smart. But he could see by the way that the other man shifted, the way his hands buried in his pockets and his head tilting, that he was nervous.

“Of course Tony! I’d love that, to spend a little time with you outside work.”

“Great!” The nervousness faded to glee. “It’s a date! Wait—oh, not a date—a uh, mate? Man date?”

Steve fanned his hand at Tony. “Get in that car, Tony. Go home and get some rest. We’ll need it, especially when we show what you’ve changed the car into to the Chief.”

“Yeah, good idea.” Tony waved a little too eagerly, running to the car and almost tripping again over that last step, but Steve ducked down instinctively and caught Tony.

For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes before laughing with embarrassment, the both of them. Steve brushed Tony off and led him to the car, opening the door before he slipped inside. The cop walked to the door step and opened the door, waving to Tony and heading indoors, admiring his new watch, which made a noise when he was behind the door.

“Steve?”

“Yeah? Tony? Is everything okay?” he asked with concern.

“Good night, pal.”

Steve’s lips turned from worry to the warmest expression he’d felt in a while, his face actually hurting from smiling so much that day. “Good night, Tony.”


	10. Chapter 10

Reed had woken up to the sound of dark laughter, slowly coming to seeing the blurry silhouette form the shape of someone familiar. The last thing he could remember was working away, hearing the alarms go off for a microsecond and then there was nothing – absolute silence. In fact the entire lab went down. There had obviously been an EMP set up somewhere; all of the robots slumped down, all sign of the AI was gone for that moment. There was absolutely no life in the lab, and this was all while Tony was out dropping Steve back home. He panicked for a moment, trying to stretch over to reach the control panel, but as he reached over the power surge sent a powerful blast of electricity through Reed’s limbs and he collapsed where he was, only to wake up, finding himself tied to a chair.

Reed struggled, his entire body feeling fatigued from the zap, making out those eyes that were behind that daunting metal mask that leered down at him with such hatred.

“Victor?!” he gasped, “It can’t be… You… You died!”

“You wish, Richards,” The voice boomed, brushing back his huge emerald green cape. He laughed and paced Tony’s lab, striding triumphantly around Reed, who was tied up on one of Tony’s work-chairs tightly with barb restraints, piercing his skin. Even with an inch of a motion Reed winced with pain.

“You see, I survived the accident, Reed. All this time I’ve been right here, continuing my plans. At first I sought a few items for my own creations; metal parts, money, emeralds – they weren’t just for vanity, they were all for my plans to create the ultimate robot and build my kingdom. But every time I tried to obtain these materials you and your pesky robot were in my way!”

“He’s not just a robot, Tony is a person!”

Doom spun on his heel, leaning in until he was inches from Reed’s face. “He is nothing but a tin man to me!” He pulled back, shaking his head. “I have always been capable of creating more superior creatures, robots with far more potential than being lackeys for the police. I could make an unstoppable army for my country – Latveria.”

Reed took a deep breath, scared and worried. He hoped with all of his being that Tony would be back soon and that the robots would come to life and help him, but for now they were all down. A floating, squished looking head moved around the room trying to dig through the papers, and keeping the EMP at work, which kept all of the robots down. Hesitantly he met the blues staring back at him, his voice strained and hoarse. “How will this help you?! Victor, we could have been a great team together, we could have helped you if you had the right ethics behind your work. But you want nothing but power, and that’s the reason that you’re struggling now.”

“I will get this power!”

“Why not get it off your own work then?”

The Persian cat that followed Doom around jumped onto Reed’s lap and hissed, using his arm as a scratching post.

“I will; you see, it’s my hard work that’s managed to shut this entire lab down. All I have to do is get those schematics and then I will be capable of building my own bots with double the functionality of that tin man’s. I’ll use it to shut down this city, then the world. The entire world shall turn to Latveria as their saviour!”  

“V-victor, you’ll never get our plans!” Reed shouted, stretching his limbs.

“Oh, Reed, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The second that Reed tried to stretch out of his restraints MODOK zoomed over, tapping a few commands on his own chair.

A beam shot out from the crystal in the center of his head, freezing Reed’s limbs until they were rock hard. Reed yelled with pain again, shaking his body but it was hard to move an inch. His teeth chattered.

“I modified MODOK, bestowing upon him the capability to freeze. You think that I’m not capable of my own progress? Think again, Richards. You and Stark don’t deserve this power, and now I’ll be the one in charge. You shall all bow before me, Doom!”

**

Tony hopped out of the car, feeling the urge to skip out, actually. He couldn’t have had a better night, and the fact that Steve had agreed to going out with him some time really made him buzz with joy, not to mention a touch of anxiety, worrying over what he was going to wear already. Of course he’d wear his signature hat and coat, but what suit? The choices were endless. It would have to be something designer and top notch, even though he knew by now that Steve didn’t care about designer brands. Still, Tony would give Steve nothing but the best.

He whistled one of his favourite tunes and walked into his building, noticing only then that everything was pitch black. JARVIS ran in first, barking mechanically, his eyes lighting up and projecting a flashlight as he sniffed around, searching for clues.

“What on Earth? Don’t we have a backup generator?”

JARVIS scooted over toward a green glowing object, barking at it. Tony meanwhile was looking around.

“Go go Stark blacklight!” He commanded, but instead of a blacklight a huge chalkboard popped up and unfolded from his hat. “No no, not black BOARD, black LIGHT!”

JARVIS barked again.

“Shh, JARVIS, I’m trying to find out how the power went out here.”

The dog shook its head, it’s LED eyes forming into annoyed slits. “Here!”

“JARVIS, what did I say?” He groaned, following the footprints to where JARVIS was sitting. “Bingo! Move aside will you buddy, I think I’ve found a clue!”

The dog let out a small huff and let Tony do his job. The detective leaned closer to the device and pulled it off the wall, the lights in the building slowly coming to life, beams lighting up again, the alarm starting to sound once more.

“An EMP? Product of Latveria? What is this…” Tony stared at the object in his hand and passed it over for JARVIS to analyze, walking toward the elevator and taking it to his lab right away.

As soon as the doors opened he saw his lab in disarray, the bots fallen, the screens flickering to life, a red flashing light and siren going on and off until Tony stepped inside himself and turned it off by commanding so. Seeing his bots lifeless made his chest tighten. Stricken with panic, he went from one to the other, seeing that they all had been taken down.

“What happened to them?!”

“Psionic blasts, according to the particle traces left around the lab. It’s a temporary effect, they’ll be just fine. They can all repair themselves…”

“Dum-E…” Tony brushed his hand over the smallest bot and carried it up, placing it on the table delicately. “Dammit… How did this happen? Reed!?” he called out. “Reed, what happened? Are you okay?!”

There was no call back. But Reed had the tendency of getting so engrossed in his work that he tuned out the voices around him. JARVIS went ahead and ran around the lab while Tony collected his bots, putting them all in an upright position so that when they turned on they wouldn’t struggle to function. They would all need to be mended with the same care and love that he’d put into all of his projects, that was for sure.

“There is no sign of him sir; traces of liquid nitrogen are around one particular area of the lab. Upon further research it seems that the EMP device that you had previously found belongs to one Victor Von Doom.”

“What? That’s impossible.” Tony’s mind was frantic, looking at the mess around him. He didn’t know where to start, and now Reed was missing too. “He can’t be alive.”

“DNA traces sir; that and the front camera caught sight of someone resembling his stature, but covered in a metal armour. Iris scans suggest it was indeed Victor Von Doom.”

Tony’s hand scrubbed through his hair, breathing heavily. It felt as though all of the air was being sapped from his lungs, his head pounding, his chest strained and feeling as though a weight rest upon it. It was only then that his eyes shot open with dread and he sprinted around the room to safe, opening it to reveal that there was nothing there.

“The schematics! They’re gone!”

Tony almost fell to the ground; instead he dropped to his knees with his hand pressed on his face. Victor was alive, and he’d stolen the schematics that he’d wanted all along – and Reed was gone, clearly kidnapped by the signs of it. Tony had, moments earlier, pieced together that liquid nitrogen would give Doom the chance to freeze Reed and take him, rendering him helpless.

_If he had only been there._

No, he thought to himself, now was not the time to pin the blame on himself. He brushed the tears forming by his ducts away, taking a deep breath to steady his trembling.

He knew the one person he could count on—

Quickly he placed his thumb to his ear and his pinkie by his lips, the silver rod extending from the top of his hat.

“Steve…? I need you!”


	11. Chapter 11

“News just in. We have reports that a rogue robot is wreaking havoc down the streets New York City.

“Reports suggest that the masterminds behind it are none other than Tony Stark, the famous robotics engineer turned detective, and Victor Von Doom – reported dead by the NYPD, but after careful research we’ve determined this was incorrect. Stark’s motives are unknown, but his ties with Victor Von Doom suggest that this has a financial motive behind it.

“Stark Industries was once a weapons manufacturer, pioneering in weaponry used during the war. Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark, founded the company. Since then Stark has been a merchant of death. After a tragic incident in which Stark had lifesaving surgery and was fused with his technology he has since managed to worm his way into the NYPD and stopping his weapons manufacturing – it appears that this detective cover was nothing but a façade and is a robot that has clearly fried it’s circuits! Stark has now gone out of control and has built this bot alongside the ruler of Latveria.

“Police are currently searching for the fugitive, Tony Stark.

“We advise all citizens to stay indoors and turn off all electronic devices.

“This is Mary Jane Watson reporting for the Daily Bugle news. More at 10!”

The police were all huddled around the small TV screen that they had in the office, chattering amongst themselves. Tony’s name propped up constantly.

“It can’t have been him…” Jessica said to herself. “Call it a sixth sense; I may not love him but he’s a klutz.”

“He’s smarter than we give him credit for, that’s for sure.” Clint replied. “You never know, this could have all been an act. Then again, I never believe the crap that these reporters go on about. How’d they know it’s Stark?”

“Apparently there’s huge similarities to the detectives old robot work in it, got the light in its chest and all, only this one’s green instead of blue.”

“Enough with this speculation!” Carol shouted. “We all know Detective Stark. We know that he’s a great guy with a heart of gold, when it comes down to it. We need to go and send as many men as we can to stop this bot, first of all. I’m sure Tony can’t be behind this…”

Fury cleared his throat, standing with authority in front of his office, a cigar hanging between his teeth while he pushed back his greys. Just the sound of his throat clearing managed to silence the buzz of noise around the precinct. “Listen to Carol. We need to stop that thing from walking down the street actin’ like it owns the joint! Everyone, get your asses down there ASAP! Take it down and make sure that Stark comes back in cuffs!”

“But sir, you don’t possibly think that…” Carol began, but Fury cut her off prematurely.

“He’s a robot. Robots can’t be trusted. You see? It’s stuff like this, hell I don’t even trust a microwave, heard the things can give you cancer!”

“Nick…” she tried to preach.

“Carol, I get you’re supposed to be a big decorated Air Force vet, but you’re talkin’ to me here. I know what I’m doin’. All’z I know is these bots can’t be trusted, never could be. Stark’s caused us nothing but trouble since day one.”

In response there was a lot of ‘that’s true’, seeming to be the general consensus. People were actually agreeing, posing that as the reason that people were afraid or weary of Tony in the first place.

“That’s not true…” Jessica whispered, only to get the stink eye in return from Fury. Not that she was particularly bothered by it; instead she turned her head away and grabbed her sandwich from her desk, taking a huge bite out of it in spite.

 “Find Stark. Take that thing down. Simple. …Well, what are you all waiting for? GO!”

Everyone jumped away from their little huddle and grabbed their things, ready to track down Tony and that robot.


	12. Chapter 12

As soon as Steve heard that panicked voice the other side of his watch-radio he ran out of his house and pressed a couple of buttons on his watch, and before he knew it the car with HELEN was parked right outside, engine running and rearing to go. He buttoned up his shirt and slipped on his uniform properly, at least that way no one would question why he was using a police car to get to this place, and no one would stop him for breaking the speed limit either. The last thing he wanted was to be stopped by the police.

Steve couldn’t have gotten in any quicker, and he drove to Tony’s place with the sirens on his car sounding loudly while he zoomed through the streets. His mind was cluttered with worry and fear, Tony’s voice the other side of the radio was like he’d never heard before; it was filled with fear and had trembled. The only Tony he’d seen was the happy confident one, that sometimes had some self-doubt, but had never fallen so low.

“He _needs_ me,” Steve kept repeating to himself aloud, hardly heard above the engine, but still, repeating it only helped push his sense of urgency and made him drive faster. The radio blasted too, but HELEN turned the channels from music to the news. That’s when Steve heard…

“They’re blaming Tony for this!? But it can’t have been him, I went into the lab, I didn’t see any killer robot, I just saw little helper robots. HELEN, do you know anything about this?”

“This was not Mr. Stark’s doing, Mr. Rogers,” she confirmed.

“Why is he getting blamed? This isn’t his fault! Just because he builds robots…” Steve frowned with disgust, hurt by such accusations on behalf of Tony.

When he arrived at the tower he ran in, going the exact same way that Tony had shown him just hours ago. Without even thinking, the moment that the elevator doors open he rushed toward Tony and wrapped his arms protectively around him. Tony was taken aback by the huge gesture, staring up at Steve like a deer caught in the headlights. Steve kept his arms curled around him, not willing to let him go until he felt the shaking stop, but it was only then that he realized what exactly he was doing. Slowly he pulled himself back, but kept Tony’s shoulders in each hand, staring at him up and down to make sure that he wasn’t hurt.

“Tony, what happened? You sounded like you’d just had the life knocked out of ya!”

“I, well, technically my bots had the life knocked out of them, but they’re coming to now, thankfully.” Tony inhaled a breath, his body still tingling from that tight embrace. “Reed’s been kidnapped.”

“What?!”

“And my schematics, the ones I told you that Doom was after… They were taken too. Within the space of a few hours Dooms managed to probably modify his own robot using my schematics, and he’s created that. The guy works fast, seems he’s got someone working for him that knows how to build quickly.”

Steve held up his hand, “Hold on, I thought you said that Victor had died? Von Doom, right? Is that who you’re talking about?”

“Yeah, turns out he’s not dead. It’s a long story Steve, I’ll tell you on the way there.”

“Way there? Where are we going?”

Tony pointed to a tiny metal pin tracker that was resting on his table. “Pretty convenient, trackers. Doom had one on me, I didn’t realise until JARVIS had done a scan on me when we got back and the lab was a mess. I reverse engineered it to see where exactly the signal was being transmitted to, and now I’ve got a handy dandy location! The track-ee has become the tracker!”

JARVIS barked and pointed the way with his ears.

“Yeah, he’s got the co-ordinates in his system now; he’ll be able to follow them.” Tony’s voice lowered. “All this time Doom had eyes on me, he followed my every move and I didn’t even realise until now.  That serves me right for wearing the same shoes for 3 days in a row… You see why I get new shoes every week?” He sighed, turning to Steve’s arms for the same embrace, nervous that he might be shunned. But Steve welcomed him, his arm resting around his shoulder while he held him close to his chest, that subtle height difference between them allowing for Tony to bury his face into the crook of Steve’s neck.

“This isn’t your fault, Tony, we’ll save Reed and get those schematics back, I promise you.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise, Steve,” Tony murmured against his shirt, reluctantly pulling back to look at the screen.

Pulling up all the courage he had, a fire lit under him, he finally placed both hands on Tony’s shoulders, meeting his eyes with a solid stare full of conviction, trying not to get lost in Tony’s guilt-ridden blues. The more eye contact he made the more the other man’s eyes lit up.  “Let’s go,” Steve said with heart.

Together they both ran to the car with JARVIS barking after them, his little wheels popping out from the soles of his metal paws as he scooted along.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Steve said in the same style Tony would usually, to get him back into the mood. The small gesture didn’t go unnoticed; it made the worry fade a fraction from Tony’s features; a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he took to the passenger’s seat. JARVIS barked happily, his tail extending into some sort of wire and plugging into the car, all Steve could do was watch as the car came to life – blue lights flashing around the complicated screens that popped up and decorated the windshield.

“Is that radar?” Steve asked, pointing to the holographic circle projected on the screen.

“Yep. Those little red blips, well they’re the—the cops. Do you realise how peculiar that sounds?”

“They’re closing the gap, Tony, we need to get going.”

“HELEN!”

The car’s engine revved loudly, the tires spinning so quickly that a cloud formed behind them as it roared into life, front wheels lifting off the ground before it sped off into the distance. Steve clutched onto the dashboard while the car reared like a horse, yelping with surprise before it zoomed down the highway.

The radio began to crackle before a song finally played.

**_Woop woop, that’s the sound of the police!_ **

Steve eyed the dashboard and shook his head; Tony tried to resist a chuckle but instead let out a snort, shrugging his shoulders at Steve while they zipped along each street, taking VERY sharp corners that almost lifted the car off the tarmac with each spin and swerve. Steve had to hold on tight, while out of Tony’s jacket a couple of belts seemed to zoom out and secure him to the seat, making a content hum when he knew that he was fastened in tight.

“Oh sure, you get belts.” Steve groaned.

“I was in a car accident previously, I have to take precautions!”

“You’re missing the point I’m trying to make.”

“Oh no, not missing a thing.” He whistled, shooting a sideward smirk in Steve’s direction which instantly brought the heat back up to the cops cheeks, nervously shifting and trying to divert his attention, before something really took a hold of it; there were loud sirens from behind him and flashing blue lights, but it wasn’t just one car, there were multiple cars that were nearing them, their icons flashing on the radar that was projected on the dashboard.

“We’ve got to avoid them!”

“Handled,” the car replied, with Steve furrowing his brows with curiosity. He’d learned with his time with Tony to expect the unexpected, but what he didn’t expect was to hear the exhaust cough before shooting out a sticky white web-looking liquid that caused the two cop cars nearest to them to halt, getting caught in the mess.

“What was that?!” Steve asked quickly.

“Oh, it’s a formula one of my interns helped me with, his name is Peter Parker, certainly a bright tool!”

“You mean sharp tool?”

“That too.”

Steve glanced back by peering into the wing mirror, seeing the other two cop cars zooming forward, avoiding the obstruction that they’d set before.

“Go go Stark gum trap!” Tony ordered the car, rubbing his hands together to see his latest invention at work, but instead of gum shooting out to stick the cars down, actual gumballs popped out from the exhaust. Before he could say anything the road behind them was littered with rainbow coloured gumballs, the cars behind skidding and crashing off to the side after their tires were unable to keep a grip of the ball covered asphalt.

At first Steve was baffled, but he saw the humor in it, after all, no one was getting severely hurt or injured and all the gumballs did was prove as another distraction for the police, yet that didn’t stop them. There appeared to be two more cars following them, catching up quickly.

“Go go-“

“Wait!” Steve called out, trying to listen close. He was sure he could hear them using their loudspeakers, but it wasn’t a usual call to pull over.

“Rogers!” A familiar voice shouted.

It was then it clicked.

“Wait, Tony, it’s Carol.”

“We can’t risk pulling over, Steve, what if she arrests us? We’ve got to go and get Reed! Y’know the guy has a family, he’s got kids—His wife is going to kill me when she finds out…”

“He’s got a wife--?! Never mind, just listen to what they have to say at least!”

Tony sighed and patted the dashboard, the car slowing down a little—just close enough to hear what they had to say.

“This is Officer Danvers, and I’m with Barton and Drew—We’re here to help you two.”

Steve knew from the moment that he’d met the officer that she was as hard as nails, and certainly knew right from wrong. She knew that they were innocent, as did the others. It was a relief not to be chased by the people he’d been learning to trust these last few days.

“We’re going toward the robot rampaging the city, we’ll take care of it, you two go and prove your innocence to Fury!”

Steve picked up one of the gadgets on the dashboard, which looked like a megaphone, talking into it. “We’ve got other plans, but thanks Carol! We have to save our friend!” It was hard to converse over a loudspeaker like that, especially as they both were driving down the highway at quite a fast pace. He’d explain later, but she flashed her front lights to signal that they could go on and Tony took the hint, nudging the car to speed off and follow the coordinates.


	13. Chapter 13

 

“Other things to do? There’s a giant robot rampaging the city, and they’re bein’ hunted, how can they have other things to do?” Clint groaned from his car via the radio.

“Oh quit complaining, we get to take down a giant robot!” Jessica added with the thrill of excitement twinging her tone.

“Danny and Luke are going to meet us there too.”

“The two bounty hunters?” Clint asked.

“Not really bounty hunters, let’s just call them cops for hire.”

Clint cleaned his ear out with the tip of his pinkie finger, “Yeahhhhhhhhh, doesn’t sound convincing enough.”

“Will you two stop complaining? You’re clouding up my radio; we have to keep these airways clear.” Carol commanded.

As they approached the city center it was clear with the amount of destruction that they were in the right place. Carol pulled her car to the side while people were running around screaming, flailing their limbs about and stumbling over one another trying to get out of the buildings that the bot was attacking. It wasn’t just stomping around the city clumsily like they’d expected, no, it was shooting lasers, flinging its huge metallic arms about, with its bright green eyes instilling fear into the local civilians that attempted to escape it. It echoed, its booming ear-shattering voice replaying the same message over and over again;

“IT IS **DOOMSDAY**!”

“Talk about a broken record,” Clint commented the second he slid out of his car, cocking his gun and targeting it at the huge robot.

“We’re going to have to take this thing down by force,” Jessica groaned, climbing up the ladder with such practiced ease, reaching the top in a matter of seconds. Luckily the fire escape closest to her provided a better vantage point.

“That’s why we have help.” Carol stated, brushing off her blazer as she stood up and out of her car, gesturing behind her to the two men ushering the citizens to safety, one wearing a green bandana on his head looking rather stylish and the other in a uniform that was probably two sizes too small for him.

“Y’think we can handle this?”

Clint had to quickly brace himself against the large rumbling from the heavy steps of the robot coming their way.

“As long as we assemble and work together, we’ll take any threat down. Remember, Barton!” Carol encouraged them in a loud commanding tone that was strong enough to light the flames of urgency in the rest of the team, that and trust as well as the courage that they needed at that moment in time.  

The glowing green eyes of the robot scoured the city, lasers shooting out of it, its huge silver head roaming back and forth as it repeated the same phrase over and over like a broken record. Its vision focused downward at Luke and Danny who were by its feet already, having sprinted their way ahead. Luke cracked his knuckles, laughing already.

“What’re we gonna call this thing?” he asked

Danny shrugged, positioning his legs in a stance ready to dash and evade whatever the bot was about to throw at them, “Well, it keeps shouting about doom and gloom, and it’s a robot… Maybe we should call it… A Doombot?”

“That sounds stupid.”

“Yeah well a giant robot storming around the city is generally stupid and oddly cliché.”

“And yet… This is our first giant robot that we’ve had to deal with.”

“Touché!” Danny grinned, sweeping back his blond hair that was lodged out of the bright green bandana by the powerful gusts that swept along the feet of the robot, that slowly drew its legs back and went for a kick, luckily the draw back motion was slow enough and both Luke and Danny stood together with their feet firmly planted in the ground. Luke grabbed the foot of the bot was already stable and Danny threw a solid punch once his partner had stabilised it.

The large metal tubing echoed hollowly, sending the shivers of vibrations through Danny’s fist. As strong as he was, he hadn’t managed to knock the bot over yet, but it had lost its balance and began to stumble, frantically looking around and directing its fingertips toward the two men that appeared as small as ants in comparison to it. Its fingertips began to glow bright yellow.

“Uh-oh…” Luke groaned.

“That… Doesn’t look good.”

Just as the bot leered, metal creaking with its movement, clearly targeting the two men, an arrow lodged perfectly just by its tear duct; it beeped a couple of times before exploding, taking out one if its eyes and sending the bot back in a much more frantic stagger backwards, loud electronic groans coming from its innards.

Clint stood perched on the top of a nearby building, giving Luke and Danny the thumbs up.

“Thanks Robin Hood…” Luke replied, running to try and pry off the edges of the metal sheet off one of the bot’s legs, while he could. At least if he could expose the circuitry then they’d be able to disable it from walking around the city and causing more damage.

“Hey, I ain’t just good with guns you know,”  he shouted back.

Carol ran in from behind Luke and Danny, her pace so quick that her hat blew off and her blond hair unravelled. She was known for her strength in the team, that’s how she’d earned respect, not only because of that but also due to her discipline. Back in the Air Force she was a true hero and a wonder, most people even considered her a marvel, earning her the nickname Miss Marvel; that was, until she had been promoted to colonel.

She had a level of strength that some may call superhuman, a true asset to the police force when she had joined, and was certainly an ability that no one wanted to mess with. As she charged in, she pummelled her fist into the now exposed circuitry and the leg began to spark, the circuitry fried by the powerful strike. The bot howled and continued its chant, though slightly distorted as it collapsed on its one good leg, kneeling there and trying to retaliate. Its mouth opened and of course, there had to be missiles.

“Oh sh-!”

Before Carol had time to speak, Jessica dashed by and grabbed her, knocking her to the ground and out of the way of the missile that shot into the space that Carol once stood in, Danny and Luke both running back as far as they could.

The explosion was huge, but they were all out of the way.

Jessica held Carol’s arm tightly.

“You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“If it wasn’t for you…”

“Okay, okay, lovebirds, we ain’t got time for this.” Luke said, he and Danny running through the smoke. The air was now filled with dirt; car alarm sirens chiming after the ground had shaken.

Luckily Clint still had a clear shot; though it was slightly distorted due to the smoke, he could see that glowing eye from a mile away. It was time to shoot the second and he did, drawing back his bow, arrow in place, eyes focused on the target, narrowing before shooting with intense precision. It landed straight in the bot’s second eye, and it threw its arms up in the air in disarray, head going back and forth, side to side to try and scan, but without visuals it couldn’t do its job.

“Let’s finish it!”

Luke did the same as before, but this time climbing up the robots dead leg to reach a higher up panel, exposing he raw already sizzling circuits. This time it was Danny’s turn; he drew back and gave the bot a solid punch to the chest, sending it crashing down to the ground on its back.

Once Jessica had scrambled off Carol, she got to her feet, Carol striding up to the fallen bot and punching her fist through a huge sheet of metal to sever its head from the rest of its body. She knelt down and pulled out some of the chips.

“I KNEW we were right!” she exclaimed.

“What?” Clint asked over the radio.

“It’s not Stark at all, look, this says… Property of Victor Von Doom.”

“You’re talking about that eccentric billionaire from years ago? The one who was the heir to the throne of Latveria?” Danny asked.

“The very one. That’s why they were going there... Come on, let’s take this to the chief and prove their innocence!”

That was just before they heard another sound coming from the distance.

There wasn’t just one robot – there were **more,** and they were all waking up around the city.


	14. Chapter 14

“How long is this going to take?” Steve whispered impatiently whilst they waited outside Doom’s mansion. It wasn’t hard to spot that it belonged to him either, it may have been located in the outskirts of the city but it was a giveaway, what with the huge statues of Doom standing outside – the huge caped menace standing with his hand in the air in pose that just resonated a lust for power.

The second that they drove past it Steve couldn’t help but wonder how he hadn’t noticed the place before, but now when he stared at it, it gave him the heebie-jeebies. It was only thanks to the tracker that they’d actually found the place, but Steve wasn’t the only one kicking himself for not noticing – Tony of course had thought that all this time Victor had returned to Latveria, but there he was, right under his nose. He was kicking himself internally as he passed the mansion that just oozed the dark power that was so typical of his nemesis.

They’d parked outside and used the car’s invisibility function, which was rather handy whilst they left it parked close by, with Steve and Tony standing next to the wall, peering around the corner now and then to make sure that the many security cameras couldn’t catch a glimpse of them.

JARVIS was huddled up by the wall, his tail having extended into a wire that was plugged into a huge fuse panel outdoors. His eyes were lit up green with binary floating across where his eyes were usually as he searched through the security protocols.

“It won’t take long; JARVIS can usually handle systems like this in a cinch!” Tony reassured him. “Trust me Steve; I want to get Reed back to safety as much as you want to.”

“I know, I just don’t want the other police to catch up with us. Boy that feels strange to say… I’ve never really been the other side of the fence…” He scratched the back of his head, eyes on the small robotic dog working its magic until the door next to them unlocked with a loud beep, the small switch on it with the light flicking from red to green.

“See! Told you it wouldn’t take long.” Tony beamed, casually stepping through the door but holding out his gloved hand. “Wait, boys… If we want to catch a criminal we need to think like a criminal.” Instantly his mind drifted back to his favourite spy movies, humming the tune in his head. “Go go laser spray.” His second to last finger flicked back like some sort of lid while a spray spurted out.

Steve sniffed the air a few times. “Minty?”

Tony quickly blushed bashfully (not that it could be seen in the dark dark room) and held up his other hand instead, “Oops! That’s breath spray, my bad.”  He pointed the correct finger toward the distance and cleared his throat, “Go go Stark laser spray!” This time when Tony sprayed it down the dark narrow hallway a number of bright red lasers became visible.

Steve was impressed. “That’s a pretty handy trick…” He whispered back.

The praise made his cheeks glow red, lowering the visor on his hat and lifting his palms to face where the lasers seemed to spawn from, quietly whispering the command before the cyan shots flew out of his palms and destroyed each one, leaving them with a clear path.

Steve could barely see now the lasers were gone, everything was dark aside from the faint blue light that seemed to be emanating from under Tony’s shirt. His hand clasped around Tony’s shoulder. The young detective smiled back at Tony before flicking his cap, just when he did that a light blue bulb lit up in the centre of it.

“Handy dandy torchlight!” he replied.

Steve continued to hold onto him, regardless. There was something comforting about it, not only for Steve but for Tony too, as they both cautiously stepped closer and closer to the doorway at the end of the hallway; it was clear where they were heading, the only door that had a light behind it. There were many doors but all of them seemed so stoic, so devoid of life, so there only seemed to be one option.  They had to run down the hallway, then down the stairs at the end of it, with Tony scooping Jarvis into his arms to carry him down while they made their way down. Tony hated walking down stairs, particularly if there were that many of them, so he grabbed Steve too, yanking him as he shouted;

“Go go Stark rocket boots-!”

“Sir, I don’t think…” Jarvis protested

“Tony I’m not sure about— “ Steve chimed in, just before he was cut off.

But instead of jets powering up, the rollerblades popped out and Tony’s eyes shot open, Steve gasping loudly as all three of them were dragged down for the bumpy ride, yelling loudly, pitch changing with each heavy step that they bumped down.

“Ah- ooh—ee—ah--!”

“I—Told --- You – This—Was – A – bad – Idea!”

“YAH!”

Eventually they fell down the stairs, collapsing in a huge heap with Steve muttering something and Tony luckily landing on top of him. What a calamity. His cheek was firmly planted on a cushion, or at least he’d thought it was a cushion. When he drew his face back he realized it was Steve’s behind and he quickly shot up, standing on his feet, firm on the ground with his rollerblades away.

JARVIS barked judgmentally and led them straight to the door at the end of the hallway, Tony brushing Steve off and laughing nervously before leading the way and whistling innocently as though nothing had happened. Steve was still in shock, but took a deep breath to get his head back in the game.

There was one laser at the end that Tony didn’t tackle, it was only thanks to the little robotic dog lagging behind with its squeaky wheels moving slowly to be somewhat stealthy tugging at Tony’s trouser leg with his teeth that he’d noticed.

“Thanks, JARVIS!” Steve replied to it enthusiastically, always awed by how observant the little bot was. Tony was beaming with pride yet again that one of his creations had saved them. Carefully they tiptoed over it, and Steve turned around to pick JARVIS up so that his wheels wouldn’t trigger off the alarm.

Tony paused just before they could enter the room, grabbing his sunglasses and slipping them on.

“Go go Stark x-ray shades. What do you think Steve? Stylish _and_ practical, am I right?”

Truth be told Steve didn’t think it was the right time to brag, but he nodded nonetheless as Tony began to look past the door to see what they were really dealing with. It was hard to stay serious when Tony had that all knowing smirk that made Steve nervous and confident at the same time, it was a strange feeling indeed.

“There only appears to be one person in there—well, a thing—it looks like a potato?”

“A potato?”

“A potato.”

Jarvis tilted his head, ears flopping and clanging against its metal parts.

“Well I’ve got—“

Steve held up his hand in preparation, “Don’t say it…”

Tony pressed a small button that was just by the corner of his wrist and his thumb flipped back to reveal a potato peeler, shooting Steve a coy grin. The cop couldn’t help but draw his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose with frustration, yet still smiling at how stupid the whole situation was, his hand going for Tony’s back and giving him a small shove as if to encourage him to get on with the job rather than goof around.

Whenever people had said Tony was a bad person Steve would always seek to prove them wrong after spending time with them, Tony was nothing but a ray of sunshine in the darkness and mundane atmosphere that the job was surrounded with, Tony brought him sheer joy since day one.

Tony pressed his boot to the door, kicking it down with Steve just behind him holding his fists up, JARVIS poking his head in and barking protectively.

It was there the floating **_thing_** that Tony had thought was a potato turned around, hovering in its chair with its tiny legs dangling and mutilated face grimacing with its teeth on show. It reminded Tony of a shark, with layers of teeth lining its mouth, and a gem in the centre of its head.

“I’ve been expecting you.—”

“Mr. Bond!” Tony finished off quickly.

“What!?”

“That’s… The full line, the whole ‘I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Bond’. Which by the way is extremely flattering, I know I’m as suave as 007 himself.” Tony tipped his cap and smirked a crooked yet oddly comfortable smirk, meanwhile Steve was behind him still trying to figure out what exactly was in front of him rather than paying much mind to Tony’s antics.


	15. Chapter 15

Steve was scoping the room while Tony was locked in a banter battle with the strange floating head. The room was huge, a laboratory of sorts that in a way reminded him of Tony’s, only this one was soaked in crimson lighting which gave it much more of an ominous vibe. Spills of black oil were covering the large metal sheets where it was clear that robot bodies once lay. Tools littered the station; honestly it wasn’t the neatest lab that Steve had ever encountered. Even with all of the clutter he spotted something sitting in the corner; a huge green button that was clearly an on-off switch, and was currently lit up which must have meant that it was on.

His eyes turned to JARVIS and the dog made a small nod, as though he knew what Steve had his eyes on.

“What _ARE_ you?” Tony implored.

“An organism designed for kill- ”

“An organism designed to look like a potato, apparently.”

“ENOUGH!” It shouted before typing something frantically into the command pad it was using to keep the chair afloat. “Psionic blaster!” It shouted, a bright pink beam shooting out of the gem that sat in the middle of his forehead, connecting it to the chair.

Tony ducked out of the way, his boots lit up on cue as he flew to one side to dodge the attack, JARVIS wheeled himself toward the desk and Steve decided to help Tony out by distracting the thing in the floating chair that went by the name MODOK.

Upon thinking about it, Steve decided that it was worse looking than a potato, much worse, actually. It looked like a prune with its crinkled skin and oval-like body, its eyes were small and beady yet its mouth was huge and filled with crooked, jagged teeth that shot every-which-way. His voice sounded like a cat when it was being brushed the wrong way; a wrangled screech of a tone.

Tony’s cyan lit gauntlet faced MODOK and shook his head. “Where is Victor?”

“You mean, Doom?”

“Wow, he’s going by his last name? How ominous.”

“Tony, focus!” Steve yelled. With MODOK’s eyes on him he drew out his gun, aiming carefully at one of the tiny arms that was placed close to a control panel on the chair, though since the hovering prune saw it, the second that Steve shot it seemed to deflect off an invisible barrier of some sort.

“Oh yeah, where is Doom? Where is Reed Richards?!” Tony asked, firing the repulsor blast only for it to bounce off the same sort of invisible barrier.

“You’re going to have to defeat me to find out!”

Tony held his hand to his mouth, not so discreetly whispering to Steve, “This feels like the guy you’re supposed to beat before you go onto a boss battle in video games.”

Steve frowned and gestured to MODOK frantically, “Tony, keep your head in THIS game, not those games!”

“Steve, I’ve learned a lot from those games. And one thing I’ve learned is to not waste your resources for the boss fight on the lackey before it!” He pointed to JARVIS who was by the computers, already wired in via his tail and collecting data, but before he had the chance to MODOK turned around, yelling out frantically before shooting a blast at him. Tony ran in front of his prized creation.

“Go go Stark-…” He had to think quick, he needed something to reflect the beam.

“Umbrella!” Steve called out.

Tony’s brow arched, “Umbrella?”

Just as he did, the umbrella poked out of the top of his hat and of course, spread wide open, Tony had to angle his head toward the beam – it didn’t deflect them but it certainly protected JARVIS, until the umbrella was nothing more than a couple of rods of wire.

Tony had a plan, connecting JARVIS’ hacking ability to MODOK – maybe he could disable his chair completely and render him useless, all they had to do was attach his wire from behind. Tony glanced up at Steve, and the cop got the hint, not knowing exactly what Tony had planned but knowing he needed a distraction. So what he did was shoot a couple of pieces he saw.

MODOK circled around to watch Steve, crying out with dismay as he caught the sound of bullets flying off metal parts, growling and sneering “Watch that! Its sensitive equipment you buffoon!” 

Tony knew he needed to join Steve so he used his boots to fly over MODOK, trying to shoot at him but again those barriers seemed to absorb the energy.

JARVIS crept up from behind, moving slowly as to avoid the squeak in his wheels, creeping up carefully while his tail wire flipped up and attempted to lodge into one of the open sockets he could see, but it was as tricky as playing a game of the ‘claw’ in a fairground, with MODOK’s frantic movements he kept having to change direction.

It was clear even from Steve’s point of view that JARVIS was having difficulty, so he did what he did best. Steve was famed for his strength, something he hadn’t really displayed since he had started working with the police in New York City, so he ran up to MODOK – since it wasn’t a projectile it wasn’t stopped by the barrier, so he ran through and grabbed MODOK’s chair as best he good; giving JARVIS the perfect opportunity to plug his wire right in.

“YARH!” MODOK yelled in protest, kicking and flailing before his blaster powered up and pummelled Steve back. Tony gasped loudly and used his boots, flying quickly to catch Steve in his arms, keeping him on his feet just barely.

Steve craned his head back a little to catch a glimpse of Tony, holding him so securely with that stare of determination facing forward, it was truly a sight. But he didn’t have much time to admire it, not when he got to his feet.

JARVIS let out a bark and MODOK swivelled around to face him.

“A mutt?!”

“Not just any ‘mutt’, a sophisticated supercomputer, capable of hacking your systems.” JARVIS replied in his thick, pronounced Queen’s-English accent.

“What!?”

Just as MODOK exclaimed, the jet that was keeping his chair afloat flattered and suddenly stopped, sending him to the ground with a loud **thump**. In that position he resembled a turtle placed on its back, struggling to get itself up again, grunting and flailing to no avail. JARVIS had managed to shut down all power to the chair, and had absorbed it – flashing a full battery logo in his optical display.  But JARVIS wasn’t quite done yet, he’d taken the green switch he and Steve had spotted earlier, a compartment in his back opening up and revealing the switch which he’d earlier swiped for securities sake.

“Good boy!” Tony praised him, running up to the switch and holding it up. “So this controls the robots in the city, huh?”

“Correct sir.” JARVIS confirmed.

“Great! I’m going to have fun doing this…” His finger lowered on the button before pressing it with a triumphant grin plastered on his face. The many screens in the room revealed the robots, and the police fighting them. Steve stood by, noticing the familiar faces from the precinct, it was a relief to see no one was hurt and that they had all banded together. The second Tony pressed the button the huge bots fell in unison, slamming to the ground with dust clouds surrounding their now lifeless bodies.

Steve exhaled a sigh, his hand going for Tony’s shoulder and rubbing it in gratitude. Tony couldn’t help but lean into the touch, like a kitten being rubbed under the chin, he smiled even more broadly and handed the remote back to JARVIS. “You keep this safe, disable it completely, wires and all.” That was when he turned to MODOK. “Where are they?”

“I’ll never tell you!”

Steve knelt down, but Tony stopped him before he could say anything, holding up his hand and pointing the repulsor at MODOK, allowing him to hear the high pitched charge-up noise it made as a warning.

“Okay, okay! I give!” he yelped in surrender. “He’s… Through that door…” He pointed to one of the main doors.

Tony glanced over his shoulder, “Did you unlock it JARVIS?”

“All doors are unlocked sir.”

“Great.” He nodded. “Come on Steve, let’s go and get Reed back!” He grabbed Steve’s arm, tugging him toward door.

Nerves overwhelmed him as he stood before the final door, but with Steve by his side he felt invincible.

He could do it, as long as he was with Steve.


	16. Chapter 16

 

The huge doors opened with the loudest of creaks and the room was bathed in an emerald light, the same green that was Victor’s signature colour. At least by then Tony knew that he was on the right path.

The floors were black marble, the walls lined with fine portraiture all of Victor himself, but the style of the paintings gave off a renaissance vibe, that along with the peculiar looking suits of armour that they’d passed in the hallways. Everything about Victor screamed a lust for power and Tony kicked himself for not having noticed this sooner.  

Tony almost jumped when he felt something brush by his leg; a fat looking cat scampered by, meowing and hissing at the two as it dashed by, seemingly not caring about its owner for the time being. But it had one thing in mind as it ran into the previous room – it was going straight for JARVIS.

Before Tony could reach behind him to say something, the heavy doors slammed shut, the wind pushed Tony’s jacket forward and he was forced to place a hand on his head to help hold his hat down. The sudden gust only made Steve grab onto Tony’s arm protectively, it’s not like a gust of wind could have done much but still, from the second he’d entered this place all he’d wanted to do was look after Tony.

“Heh…”

The dark laugh echoed throughout the halls, getting louder and louder the closer they walked toward the throne, where the dark figure sat. At first the both of them had thought it was another statue that the cat had jumped off, but upon closer inspection the statue moved, it was the source of the laughter.

Tony’s eyes narrowed, using his zoom in vision to take in the sight much clearer; long armoured covered legs with such defined and intricately made sheets of metal, a long emerald green cape with a hood shadowing his eyes and of course… A mask, with hauntingly stern features that seemed so rigid and robotic it was clear its purpose wasn’t merely for display, it was to instil fear into those who dared to gaze upon it. It sent a shudder down Tony’s spine and he swallowed thickly, this wasn’t the Victor he was used to seeing; he remembered a man with brown hair, relatively handsome features, bright blue eyes that would pierce his soul and give him the creeps simultaneously. 

“Victor…” Tony whispered with shock, his own blues huge and focused on the man in front of him. There was only one way he could tell it was actually him, and that was only because those steely grey-blue was visible, giving Tony even more of a scare, so much so that he found himself gravitating toward Steve, almost leaning into his arm.

“What _happened_ to you?” His voice cracked with dismay.

Steve could feel Tony’s fear; he could see the way his body stiffened as they closed the gap between him and the infamous Victor von Doom.

“You see, Stark.” This was going to be the start of a long villainous lecture, Steve could feel it. He had always wondered what it was with bad guys and revealing their entire life story. “After the accident I was transported home, where I was seen by the best doctors of my country, magicians, you might say.”

“I hate magic.” Tony muttered, internally coursing through flashbacks where a magician at his 4th birthday party made him open a seemingly empty can and a spring-snake popped out and scared him so much that he fell over and started crying.

Steve leaned over to Tony, waving a hand in front of his dazed face and snapping his fingers to shake him out of his memories, Tony jumped and resumed listening to Doom. “Carry on…”

Doom frowned under the mask and cleared his throat loudly, “As I was saying. After the accident they rebuilt me, they made me who I truly am. I was shed of my human skin and I was made into a GOD.” He stood up, hands sparking with electricity.

Tony was a man of science, but he’d known with his previous work with Victor years in the past that the man was open to all sorts, and even teased his belief in magic, of which Tony had constantly mocked him for, as did Reed.

_Speaking of Reed…_

“Where is Reed Richards?!” Steve asked abruptly, unimpressed by the claim to be a god despite the crackle between Doom’s fingers.

All Victor needed to do was snap his fingers and the wall panel to his left turned around like a secret passage, revealing Reed strapped to the wall, his body frozen and in tight binds with smoke from the liquid nitrogen misting around the man, causing his teeth to chatter. Of course, the only way to restrict rubber was to freeze it – science class 101.

Doom laughed again behind his mask, stepping down from his throne with grace that neither Steve nor Tony thought was possible in the weighed armour he was encased within.

Each step came with a loud **CLUNK**.

“You know what, Victor, I’ve always been a fan of heavy metal but this takes it to a whole new level.”

“Silence, simpleton!” Doom yelled at Tony, shooting a beam of electricity his way.

“He’s just shooting energy!” Tony grabbed Steve and pushed him to one side, throwing his weight into the shove so he too fell down to one side. The cop gasped with surprised, falling down but scrambling to his feet almost instantly.

“Steve, stay back!” Tony yelled, his boots lighting up on command and soaring toward Victor as quickly as he could, dodging the continuous blasts that were being sent his way.

“Tony!”

He wasn’t going to listen, Tony knew this fight was between him and Victor, so he took it upon himself to thrust forward, only to be struck down by a blast of energy.

“You didn’t let me finish my story; that’s the thing with you Stark, you’re always so quick to jump the GUN. Once a famous weapons dealer, turned robotics engineer. You could have had so much potential, you could have built robots to change the world, and instead you leave that in my much more capable hands. Your schematics were certainly a fun read, but my modifications prove that I am truly superior…”

That explained the giant rockets and missiles that Steve had noticed on the screen. Part of him wondered whether Tony was capable of such destruction, the thought did cross his mind but he quickly shoved it to the back of his thoughts where it belonged; Tony was a gentle soul, a kind man who wanted nothing more than to help others. He’d made that apparent a number of times.

Doom snapped his fingers and one of the suits of armour that stood by the side of the room began to move, shakily making its way over towards the fierce man stood in front of them. Tony held his hand up, ready to fire, tense with his shoulders raised. Steve had never seen Tony eye anything that intensely in his time with him; he knew then and there that Tony had a single priority and that was saving Reed. All the statue did was hold out a folder of papers which the inspector recognised instantly; the schematics for his original build that he’d stolen, all scrawled and scribbled over with Doom’s ‘improvements’.

Tony sneered with distain but all Doom did was soak in the reaction with such glory, laughing much louder than before. Tony just couldn’t take it, he couldn’t just stand back and watch Reed being tortured and to see his creations being turned into something darker, something more malicious than he had in mind. He couldn’t bare it any longer and prepared his hand for a blast.

“Go go Stark repulsor blast!”

Doom sidestepped the blast, but his statue wasn’t so lucky and crumbled with a loud clatter.

“Trying to kill me again, Stark?”

“Not kill, just subdue you, by knocking you clean out!” It was time for a change of plan. “Go go Uni-beam!” He held his arms out, that light in the centre of his chest glowing brightly, but instead of anything happening a toothbrush extended from under the collar of his jacket and went for his teeth. “No no! I said Uni-beam! Not teeth-clean!” Tony yelped and flailed at his jacket, getting the toothbrush to retract away, back into hiding. If there was one time he didn’t want his mechanics to falter, it was right now.

Steve gasped, observing how Doom lurched toward Tony and quickly waved his hands at him as a distraction whilst Tony got himself sorted. “Hey, big guy! Over here!”

As expected Doom’s attention was caught by the flailing cop, waving his arms about before running back to one of the statues and tugging one of its arms lose (a surprisingly easy task for someone with his strength) and threw it at the villain.

“UGH!” he yelled, smacking away the arm as it crashed to the floor with another loud noise that rippled throughout the room, the sharp grey eyes didn’t look impressed in the slightest and only caused the hair on the back of Steve’s neck to stand, but he had to perceiver, if not for Reed, then for Tony. Now it was the cop’s time to use that distraction, helping Tony and tossing the tube of toothpaste that had appeared from his jacket back where it belonged.  He whispered a tiny “Thanks Steve.” Under his breath, gently pushing Steve back and in front of him so that he could protect him. In this type of situation Steve felt useless; he was up against someone with seemingly magical powers, projecting energy blasts straight at them.

Doom was becoming angrier and angrier by the second, and with that came more frantic blasts of lightening from his fingertips, Tony and Steve ducking from side to side, pulling one another to help evade the powerful beams coming right at them. As much as Tony wanted to shoot back, he needed to power up his repulsors before they could fire, and that power-up time couldn’t be achieved when he was dashing from place to place.

“Steve! Your watch!”

“What? This isn’t the _time_ —“

“Now is the PERFECT time!”

Without thinking twice Steve stared at his watch, pressing the tiny button to the side of it, and then before he knew it his watch lit up. Defensively he drew his arm back, watching as a holographic shield appeared over his wrist, his eyes lit up with awe. The shield looked magnificent; red and white circles with a blue circle and white star in the center, talk about _patriotic_.

Now it was time for Tony to express how much he’d learned about Steve during their time together; Steve was always hesitant to fire his gun, unlike most of the partners that he’d had in the past, Steve didn’t have an itchy trigger finger. He preferred to defend and the way he conducted himself brought Tony back to his old history days and fantasies of being a knight, and no knight would be complete without a shield, which is what he provided Steve with.

As soon as a blast came their way, Steve held up the holographic shield that seemed to soak up the energy and bounce it back.

“Stark tech! It works just like a real shield!” Tony explained, though quickly as they dodged another blast.

Doom was showing no signs of tiring as he waved his arms, each blast becoming more powerful than the next, carving deep into the once spotless marble floors.  Every hit Tony tried to shoot was deflected and sent back, it simply wasn’t powerful enough. He needed all of his power for something powerful enough to surpass those blasts.

“Tony watch out!” The cop yelled, throwing himself as quickly as he could in front of Tony and holding his shield up, he seemed like a natural, moving swiftly, light on his feet. Apparently those boxing lessons had paid off and he was certainly moving from one foot to the other as quickly as he could, allowing him to not only shield Tony but to get closer to Doom, and once he was within striking distance he lunged forward and threw a mighty WALLOP!

His knuckles slammed against the metal coat Doom was encased in, it vibrated after the impact and send a loud shudder through Steve’s bones, but mostly it managed to send Doom crashing back into the throne he was sat in. The hit was certainly painful.

“Steve! Hold your shield up!”

Just as Doom stood to his feet he quickly noticed Tony powering up a blast from his armoured red and gold gauntlet, the ray of cyan bouncing off the holographic shield and straight at Doom, who was once again sent back. This time he wasn’t happy about it and as he stood he roared, sending multiple blasts out from each fingertip.

Steve dashed to protect Tony as quickly as he could, always staying a couple of steps ahead of him with his shield facing the beams. Each blast was taking its toll, the shields power fading with each passing moment.

“I need to power up…” Tony winced. The problem with robotics was that he needed power, though his arc reactor was a source of energy it did take its time to charge up again, with all of the power that he was using for the repulsors he was starting to wear it down to a point where it was critically low. All he needed was time, which was something that he certainly didn’t have. Tony’s eyes narrowed, scouting the room for anything he could use but of course, he remembered the robot that he’d knocked down earlier the one that had handed Doom the schematics, that would be perfect. All he needed to do was get closer to it.

Steve tilted his head back, noticing where Tony’s eyes were going. It didn’t take a genius to put it together.

“I’ll cover you!”

Tony gave Steve a look of worry, before receiving that nod that had such an unspoken confidence to it.

“Go go Stark jetpack!” This was something he wasn’t too keen on using, because the instant he said it he felt the armor from his legs spread up to his back, panels locking into place which took their time. Each fold in his armor locked into a 1 centimetre thick panel, but panel upon panel added more depth to the metal sheath over his body. Each clipped into place, two trapezoid shaped panels pushing their way further out and lighting up with blue as they’d form jets. When these jets lit they tore through the cloth of his neat trench coat that he valued ever so much, but it was the quickest way to get from point A to point B. With the back-jets formed they lit along with his feet, using his hand repulsors to balance himself as he flew quickly toward the fallen bot to absorb its power pack and regain the energy that he’d lost.

Meanwhile Steve had to distract Doom, and he did so by charging straight at him, since it had taken Doom off guard before, but each strike sent him back a little. All Steve had to do was dig his heels into the ground and push forward, gritting his teeth as he ran. He knew Tony needed time, so he’d do anything he could to give him that.

With the last ounce of energy the shield had, Steve used it to thud into Doom, but Doom raised his own gauntlet, his metal forearm pushing against the shield as it flickered once, maybe twice. He threw the entirety of his weight into pushing against Doom, the fizzling fingertips nearing him, dangerously close with each inch as he glared into Doom’s eyes, his own filled with the intent of taking him down and freeing Reed.

There was fire in his eyes; a deep passion to protect that gave him the strength to push harder. It was as though he could see every small movement and twitch of Doom’s eyes, he could hear him snarling under the mask, all whilst Tony dismantled the bot for its power source and began to drain it, as quickly as he could, unravelling wires from the inside of his jacket and plugging them into the battery.

The shield flickered a few times, a drop of sweat trickled down Steve’s temple as he held himself in place, the heat from Doom’s hands being far more immense than he’d first ever anticipated, then again he didn’t expect to be dealing with a magic mad scientist who was shooting rays out of his fingertips.

Steve winced, the shield finally fading which gave Doom the chance to raise his hand and slam it down with a tremendous back-hand, the metal colliding with Steve’s face as he dropped to the ground. It was the hardest hit he had ever felt in his life, and growing up in Brooklyn he’d sure felt plenty of hard hits before. The power of metal behind it must have added some extra weight, and if that wasn’t enough the hand was already crackling with energy that coursed through Steve’s system simultaneously and caused him to collapse to those smooth marble floors, unconscious.

“Steve!” Tony cried out as loudly as he could. He shrieked, almost, his heart pounding. This was the first time he could _feel_ his heart over the internal whirring of machinery inside him. His eyes fixed, wide on the fallen man.

No, Tony had lost those that he had loved the most in the past; he couldn’t save them, he had lost his girlfriends in the past, all taken too soon purely because of his name, because of his legacy. Tony was the target of many attacks before joining the force; in fact those reasons encouraged him to follow the path of justice. He couldn’t lose someone else, especially not Steve.

Tears welled in his eyes, partially with rage but mainly sadness; it had been the first time in a year that Tony Stark felt close to crying. It was bittersweet, to be reminded he was still human.

He stood to his feet, head lowered, rim of his hat shading his face, trying to compose himself against Doom who stood there so triumphantly towering over his fallen comrade. His arms were trembling with pain, fingers slowly curling and balling up into fists. Tony closed his eyes for a moment, opening them with a bright blue glow to the iris, power surging throughout his body and all channelling down to his chest, to his beating heart.

The circle in the centre of his chest beamed brightly, Doom turning his full attention toward it and with a powerful cry he shouted. “Go go Stark Unibeam!”

A huge cyan beam of light shot out of Tony’s chest, blasting toward Doom and sending him far back into the wall with such a force that the impact alone rendered him unconscious, his precious silver armour accumulating dark deep cracks and crumbling in some parts with the sheer power. 

Doom collapsed in a smoking heap of metal. Tony meanwhile, as exhausted as he was from using all of his energy on that last attack, ran up to Steve as quickly as he could, scooping him up gently in his arms, his hands slowly using their cloaking tool and forming back into regular looking hands. His fingers gently traced Steve’s beautifully strong jaw as tears welled up.

“No, I can’t lose you, too…”

They trickled down his cheeks, leaning closer to Steve and feeling his chest tighten, just to hold him like that, so limp, so pale. He leaned closer, feeling his lower lip quiver.

 There was nothing stopping him this time, no anxiety, no self-doubt or excuses, he just leaned forward and gently pressed his lips over Steve’s, his eyes fluttering shut. Tear droplets danced elegantly over his long dark eyelashes, the soft warm lips tasting oddly of cherry pie. All his time Tony had assumed that they would’ve tasted like apple, since well, Steve was the all-American cop, living the American dream. But no, it was instead the sweet taste of cherry. As he threw all of his emotion into the kiss he could feel a hand move and loop itself over Tony’s neck, gently tugging at the tufts of hair by the nape of his neck.

Tony had never felt so much yearning in his entire life. Living a ‘privileged’ life meant he could have most things, but someone to love had always been something he was inches from obtaining before it was so cruelly stolen from him. But as he felt the gentle touches to his hair his eyes fluttered open, to finally notice that Steve was awake, to feel his breath, to feel the warmth of his fingertips as his thumb brushed against his jaw. Steve was cupping Tony’s face; one hand there the other with its grip tightening in Tony’s spectacularly soft black curls.

Oh god, how he felt his heart race.

Tony was kissing him so hard and so passionately that he didn’t notice when little projections of beating love-hearts appeared above his head, floating around in a circle, and the second that Steve looped his arms around him and tugged Tony down to deepen the kiss the top of his fedora seemed to open and a huge loud party horn popped out, making a loud noise whilst confetti spewed from it. The corners of Steve’s lips tugged upward into a smile, breaking the kiss with the smallest of chuckles and covering his mouth with a bashful glance at the tin man. His cheeks were tainted with an adorable red blush; the same that matched Tony’s and they exchanged a stare of pure affection and adoration between them. There were no words to explain the relief that that coursed through Tony’s veins.  

The feeling to be awoken by his prince charming, or in this case, his charming inspector made Steve’s stomach fill with butterflies, fluttering around with each passing moment their lips made contact until he was left was a blushing mess of emotions. He had always known there was something special about Tony, since day one, and there he was being proven right. Tony had a heart.

“A-a-a-are any of you… going to help me?”

Tony tilted his head back and noticed Reed. In truth for those moments he’d actually forgotten that he was sat right there, baring witness to what had just happened. Tony helped Steve up and swatted away at the love hearts that continued to float around his head, a loud drum echoing as he gazed down at the light in his chest that had seemingly turned bright pink – a heart appearing on it and beating as though he were some sort of cartoon. Again, Steve laughed before running up to Reed, staggering a little if it wasn’t for Tony wrapping his arm around him and running alongside him supporting him.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got you.”


	17. Chapter 17

The cameras flashed as the paparazzi flooded around the gate of Doom’s mansion, the loud sounds of shutters clicking as they took photo after photo of Chief Fury by the gates, standing next to Reed Richards who had already been escorted out of the mansion, wrapped in a trauma blanket with a beautiful blond woman cradling him lovingly (though truth be told, she did look annoyed when he’d first been taken out of the mansion, but Tony could tell that annoyance was with love). Steve and Tony both walked out either side of Doom, holding the man in special cuffs that Tony had made for just the occasion. _Naturally,_ he was prepared to deal with super-magic-villains in the future.

Along came JARVIS, scooting along and dragging MODOK in a tangle of wires along with that fluffy cat that Doom had as his companion, also tangled in the wires, screeching loudly in protest as she was bundled into the back of a police van with Doom and MODOK, doors slamming shut. Though JARVIS didn’t escape without scratches all over his screen and frame – luckily titanium enforced alloy could easily withstand the constant scratching of a rebellious evil cat.

 “Chief!” Tony waved enthusiastically at Fury, happily jogging to his side with a smug smirk plastered over his face, Steve joining his side whilst Carol and the others stood by the side-lines after explaining to Fury what had happened. Those bots wouldn’t have been stopped without Steve and Tony’s help.

Fury knew what Tony was expecting and rolled his eye, groaning even before he’d started talking.

“So how about you tell these ladies and gents? Kindly, sir?”

It was as though Fury sought some sort of escape from the situation, glancing over toward Steve who shrugged and pointed back to Tony. “He saved the city, Chief.”

Fury muttered obscenities under his breath, directing his attention toward the press who stood there in anticipation, continuing to take pictures of the men that were stood there. Tony gave Fury a nudge of encouragement, that only enraged him further and he cleared his throat rather abruptly.

“As you can see, Victor Von Doom had been plotting against us, the events that have unfolded have all been due to him and his dark intentions to destroy the city to overrule it. He will be dealt with and sent to the Negative Zone prison facility, as far from the city as possible.”

Tony cleared his throat. Steve couldn’t help but smirk when he saw a huge arrow pop up from Tony’s hat, pointing down to him in a flashing neon red.

Fury clenched his teeth, his voice becoming more of a stern mutter, “And I’d like to extend a formal apology to Tony Stark… Who if not for his… Smarts-- ”

“And gadgets, and brilliant side-team, and partner.” He clapped his hand around Steve’s shoulder.

“And that… The city would still be under siege by Doom’s monstrosities.”

“Did he just call us a side team?” Clint turned to Jessica, who shrugged nonchalantly.

“So thank you Tony, you are officially one of the departments… Prized inspectors.” Every word that escaped Fury’s mouth held a grudge to it, but at least he was being honest. “You’ve earned your place in the precinct, and your title, inspector. Along with your partner. I suppose tin-men are okay…”

That was the best apology he was going to get. Steve could tell that Tony wanted more, but instead patted his back to signal that if he pushed Fury further he’d probably get a knock in the teeth judging by the chief’s temperament.

“The city offers their thanks.”

“It was my pleasure, and I’ll continue to keep the city safe from crime! Along with my partner, Steve Rogers.” Tony announced, enjoying the limelight and relishing in it ever so proudly with the man standing next to him.

Steve smiled, embarrassed but proud. He wasn’t used to the attention but the constant rubs on the shoulder from Tony made it all worth it, knowing that he was standing next to someone that he truly cared for, that would risk his life for him.

**

Everything was well in New York City. The birds were once again singing, the children were outside playing and the town was safe and being rebuilt once again. The robot parts scattered around the city were being recycled and used for Tony’s new business – prosthetics for those in need. He was helping in more ways than one, naturally the philanthropist. Reed was back in the lab, being monitored by Sue more closely than ever. Carol was running her new sub-team, helping rebuild the city and monitor supervillain activity. And Steve and Tony, well, they had plans of their own.

They had both earned a day off; Tony’s first course of action that day was to take Steve to the finest gallery in the city. Steve couldn’t believe when he saw these masterpieces up close, he was in utter awe of how beautiful everything was up close. Seeing these pieces in person had always been a dream of his, and there Tony was making his dreams come true. Tony was dressed in a rather smart looking suit, of course with his trench coat, but without his signature hat for once. Steve knew that it was probably in the trunk of the car, or hidden somewhere.

Either way, Tony looked rather dapper with his hair out, strands delicately and carefully placed and styled to perfection, walking around with Steve proudly and showing him all that he knew about art. It came a surprise to Steve that Tony knew as much as he did, but then again he was a genius. Tony appreciated the finer things in life, beauty was one of them, and art was beauty. Upon finding out that Steve was an artist it had become his prerogative to show him the galleries of New York.

But they didn’t just go to one gallery that day; they went to many, going from gallery to gallery and of course, stopping off for ice cream.

When they stepped out of the last gallery for the night Steve pushed his hair back, embracing the wonderfully peaceful night. “Thank you Tony, this has probably been one of the best days of my life, actually. Knowing that the city is safe and well… Spending time with you.”

Tony could feel his heart fluttering again, his reactor turning pink. Steve adored that, he loved how he could see Tony’s emotion without having to read into it. He bit his lower lip and wrapped his arms around Tony as tightly as he could.

“Thank you, Tony,” he repeated, though with much more affection to his words.

Tony was going to reply, bundling himself tighter and closer into Steve’s arms, but instead of replying another idea popped into his head, a lightbulb dinged just above him coincidently. He peered upward- nope, that was purely a coincidence, an oddly fitting one.

He kept his arms around Steve, but his shoes folded over, the cloaking device fading as they phased into his regular red and gold boots and he whispered; “go go Stark jet boots…”

Steve’s was so caught up in the embrace that he didn’t even realise that he was slowly and very stealthily being carried from the ground. For a while he’d thought it was just typical of a fairy-tale moment where he’d felt as though he was literally on cloud nine; feeling so light and filled with love. It was only when he finally opened his eyes that he’d realised that he was flying, he was actually flying. Tony was holding him tightly and secure and in theory Steve should have felt scared, but in fact, he felt something that he hadn’t in a long time; **safe**.

“You okay there? Captain?”

“I’ll never get used to that title. Fury literally just gave it to me because… Well, because of you. And yes, I’m fine—Where are we headed?”

“No Steve, you earned it. And I like it, it rolls off the tongue. Captain Steve Rogers…  Don’t worry, it won’t be long.”

And it wasn’t long, not until they had finally reached the top of the huge tower that Tony had first taken Steve to, taking him right to the top where he placed them down on the balcony; a tiny ledge he’d built just for this purpose – to share the view with someone that he loved.

Even though they had let go, Steve kept his arm around Tony’s waist. “God… This is beautiful…” The view was breath-taking. After going to every gallery that day, observing and taking in every piece, not one of them could match up to how beautiful that moment was. He could see the entire city, all lit up, New York in all of its beauty was something unparalleled by anything he’d ever seen before. But of course, nothing made the moment more beautiful than being by Tony’s side.

Tony noticed Steve’s shudder and removed his jacket, placing it around his much more broad shoulders, but it did the job, wrapping an arm around him and brushing his cheek to the round of those beautifully muscular shoulders to keep himself warm.

For a moment Tony held out his hand, shooting his repulsor into the sky, but making a drawing with the beam of light in the shape of a heart. Corny, Steve thought, but adorable. It only caused Steve to chuckle under his breath and loop his arm closer around the other.

“This is our city, Inspector.” Steve said, gazing out.

“Ours it is. We’ll keep it safe.”

“And keep each other safe…”

“That’s a promise.”

And with those words they turned to one another, tilting their heads, closing their eyes and pressing their lips together, sealing their words with a kiss so tender and so pure.

That day a vow was made.

 Who thought an inspector and a cop could have ever fallen so in love.

Oh, and that very evening Steve Rogers indeed discovered that Tony Stark had a gadget for **everything**.

 


End file.
